Vanity Fair Album, 1887. (Vanity Fair Office.)—This volume, the nineteenth
of the series, strikes us as being above the average in merit. The complaint that there were not eminent men enough in the country to furnish a new portrait every week, has been met and satisfied by the publication of new drawings of various personages who were first pictured many years ago. There are still some nobodies, or people that are nobodies outside the narrow limits of society ; but on the whole, the contents of the volume are sufficiently interesting. The portraits, done by the same hands, for the most part, that have been at work for the Album for some time past, do not differ materially from those brought oat in earlier issues. Perhaps there is less caricature, or the caricature is more subtle and refined. Mr. W. H. Smith, for instance, might be said to be cari- catured; the smile is certainly not such as a portrait-painter would represent ; but it is an admirable presentment of the man. There is a good portrait of Mr. Gladstone. Among others that we should be inclined to rank high are General Boulanger, Mr. John Dillon, Mr. Matthews (the Home Secretary), and M. Pasteur. It is noticeable that the frontispiece pictures Tattersall's, and that three jockeys are to be found among " Men of the Time." Verily, these equorum et gladiatorunt studio are as powerful now as they were when the Roman moralist denounced them.
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