CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
Stories of the Italian. Artists. By the Author of " Belt and Spur." (Seeley and Co.).—If we have a fault to find with this very pleasant book, it is that the canvass is too much crowded with figures. Perhaps this could hardly be helped. Italy, for the three centuries and a half that began with the flourishing of Cimabue (born 1240) was extraordinarily fertile of artistic genius. There was a positive multitude of painters, sculptors, and architects ; and though a few great names stand out prominent, there are many which it would be impossible to omit. Vasari is, so to speak, the Herodotus of this period, at least on the artistic side of its history. He wished to tel the truth (though Professor Sayce will not allow this of Herodotus) ; bat he was credulous, and he had some prejudices. And he certainly is extraordinarily vivid. Who cannot see old Elpinello waking at night with a dreadful dream of the Lucifer, whom he had just been painting, with his " affrighted air and wide, staring eyes" ? or does not enjoy the humorous proceedings of Brnnellesoho when he was building the Duomo at Florence ? The book is full of delightful reading, carefully chosen from a rich treasury of curiosities.
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