KöNLU'S LUTHER.*
The volume before us is a modified counterpart of "the Life of Martin Luther," publiShed by Mr. Cooke, which we noticed in December 1853. Two plates, however, seem_ to have dropped out, as the title of that edi- tion announced it to be "in fifty pictures "; or two of them, here united, may have been divided there. On the former occasion, we defined the artist as "profoundly German and really artistic," and the designs as exhibiting the "Teutonic intended blending of the realistic and the abstract."
Such differences as there are are mainly in favour of the present edi- tion. The plates, instead of being wood-cuts of no great delicacy, are careful, if not highly-wrought, steel-engravings-doubtless the original German plates; and, without making Herr Konig what Nature did not make him-a great man-they render a fuller and more agreeable account of his well-considered telling of the story, his uniform self-respect and propriety, and his German knowledge and artistic feeling for details of backgrounds, interiors, &c. The literary elucidations-of which Arch- deacon Hare had composed fourteen, when death left his work incomplete -aye well written and to the point, supplying just such information about the incidents of the great Reformer's "good fight" as are needed to enhance one's pleasure in looking at the designs, without overloading the book; and they are more in the tone acceptable to English readers than the translation from Herr Gelzer in the other edition. Finally, the book, in a rich and well-designed dark-blue cloth binding, is beautifully got up; and, if it suits the artist in the second degree, it will suit the Protestant hero-worshiper, and the man on the look-out-for a high class gift-book, in the first.
.* The Life of Luther. in forty-eight Historical Engravings, by Gustav liOnig with Explanations by Archdeacon Hare, continued by Susanna Winkworth. Pub- lished by Longman and Co.
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