CURRENT LITERATURE.
CHRISTMAS BOOKS.
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. Illustrated by David Scott, R.S.A. With Life of the Artist, and Descriptive Notices of the Plates, by Rev. A. L. Simpson, D.D. (Nelson and.Sons.)—The memoir of David Scott is an interesting, but melancholy biography. Scott was not appreciated in his life-time. His art, in truth, was of a kind that seldom is appreciated. The patrons who foster High Art are, and indeed, must be, few, and it was to this that Scott was devoted. Dr. Simpson thinks that the Scottish public were peculiarly blind ; but the life of Hayden, though Haydon was probably inferior to Scott, affords a curious parallel. "The magnificent picture of Vasco di Game was exhibited in the Calton Convening Room. Very feW went to see it, and its exhibition entailed a pecuniary loss of nearly 280." This might be an extract from Ilaydon's life. The designs for the Ancient Mariner were executed at the age of twenty- six. Finely imagined they are, and some are remarkably effective ; but we can imagine that they would not please a very large public, especially more than thirty years ago.
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