Our English Lakes, Mountains, and Watwfalls, as seen by William
Wordsworth, photographically illustrated. (A. W. Bennett, Bishopagate street.)— To lovers of Wordsworth and of Wordsworth's country no more delightful present could be made than this book. The photographic views which accompany Wordsworth's poems seem to us in some real sense to suit them better than engravings. There were both powers and defects in Wordsworth's mind which are analogous to the effects and defects of photographs, as compared with the work of even the greatest artists. We do not mean, of course, the supposed literalism of photographs, which is not at all Wordsworthian, and which we are inclined to believe delusive as a quality of any photograph, but the peculiar effect of a cool mist of light spread over the landscape, and a depth of mystery in the shadow, which nothing but photographic art gives. It gives that peculiarly "visionary" effect, based, neverthe- less, on a solid and rugged sense of reality, which is Wordsworth's chief characteristic ass. poet- Turner would illustrate the visionary effect, but not the rugged and hardy fidelity of Wordsworth ; and no other artist., eNtept the sun, could illustrate him at all. lie la Rue's admirable red-letter diaries for 1864 have appeared with their usual astronomical illustration, which is this year a photograph of the full moon. They are the most useful and attractive kind of diaries used.
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