CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
Cabinet Portrait Gallery. Reproduced from the original Photo- graphs by W. and D. Downey. (Cassell and Co.)—This is the "Fifth Series" of these very attractive volumes, which to a future generation will supplement the remarkably interesting collection which is to be found in Vanity Pair. The treatment of faces is absolutely different; nor is there any but accidental agreement of subject. Of course, however, the same personages sometimes appear, and a comparison is both instructive and enter- taining. We classify, as we have done before, the thirty-six portraits which Messrs. Cassell have this year, not without that knowledge of the public taste which distinguishes them, included in their "Gallery" The drama, including the producers and exponents of music, claim sixteen; "Royalty," including a lady who owes her inclusion to rank and beauty, has eight ; literature, science, and the professions, five (the Church not being repre- sented) ; art, one politics, five ; the unclassed portrait is that of the explorer, Captain Lugard. It will be seen that the public pleasure comes in easily ahead. Literature, not dramatic, is represented by Mr. Le Gallienne and Mr. Thomas Hardy, though -Lady Dilke, who shares a portrait with Sir Charles, may be counted as making a third. Mr. A. J. Balfour and Mr. Acland are the most conspicuous politicians. Sir Henry Norman would, it is probable, hardly have appeared, but for the curious episode of his accepting and resigning the Viceroyalty of India.
Previous page
