Shakespeare Scenes and Characters. A Series of Illustrations, with Explanatory
Text, selected and arranged by Professor E. Dowden. (Macmillan.)—This handsome volume has a character of sterling worth which books meant to lie on drawing-room tables do not commonly possess. The illustrations will be new to most readers. Professor Dowden has laid German art under contribution for them ; "Germany," as he truly remarks in his preface, "which has so largely contributed to the scholarly study of Shakespeare, has also made some remarkable contributions to the pictorial illustrations of his playe." There are thirty-six illustrations, engraved on steel. Of these, Herr Adamo, whose name many will recognise as belonging to the Munich school, has contributed a third part, and Herr Peeht a fourth. The other names are Hofmann, Makart, Schwoerer, and Spiess. The first-named artist's "Julius Cmsar Passing to the Senate House" and "Hilbert and Prime Arthur," and Professor Hofmann's scene from '5 Twelfth Night," Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek with Viola in Olivia's garden, may be mentioned as especially good. The "explanatory text" is as important a feature as the illustrations which it subserves. Professor Dowden's study of Shakespeare and his commentaries and critics has been a very wide one. He has himself made no insignikant eontrilm- time to the literature of the subject. From this literature, which is, deed, immense, he judiciously selects. Not one of the more conspicuous names is absent from his table of contents. Altogether he has made up an excellent volume,
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