CURRENT LITERATURE.
can do little more than recommend it to the notice of our readers. They could not have a more appropriate volume for the drawing-room table.
At the same time, it has what these volumes frequently fail to have, a distinct literary value. It is a portion of a larger work which M. Lacroix, in conjunction with several coadjutors, published some years ago, "The Middle Ages and the Renaissance ;" that portion, in fact,
which related to art, and which was, we presume, the work of M. Lacroix himself, a most competent authority, we need hardly.
say. We give some of the headings of the chapters, from which.
the scope of the work may be seen ; " Furniture : Household and Ecclesiastical ;" "Tapestry ;" "Arms and Armour ;" "Musical Instruments," "Playing-Cards," "Painting on Wood, Canvas, dc.,"" "Architecture," "Manuscripts," de. Turning to the last of these, we- may mention some of the illustrations with which it is adorned. There- is a miniature from the "Vatican Virgil," one of the oldest MSS. in the- world ; another from the "Bic& of the Gospels," which is said to have- belonged to Charlemagne; a very beautifully executed representation in colours of "The Coronation of Charles V., King of France," taken from
a MS. of Froissart which exists in the Imperial Library of Paris; and the, "Panel of a Book-Cover," a bas-relief, in gold repoussd, attributed to- the ninth century, which is of very great interest. But it is quite idle.
to try to represent in words the varied beauty of the illustrations ; and we have, unhappily, no other means at our command. The reader- must judge for himself. Any one who enjoys an hour or two spent in. that collection at South Kensington, which is daily growing more worthy- of the wealth and culture of the nation, will appreciate this book.—A.
portion of the very large subject dealt with in the volume just. noticed, forms the subject of Dr. Wilhelm Liibke's valuable volume on.
Ecclesiastical Art in Germany daring the Middle Ages, translated by L.. A. Wheatley from the fifth German edition. (Edinburgh, Jack ; London, Simpkin and Marshall.) Dr. Lfibke is naturally more familiar with German, as M. Lacroix is with French examples ; and as he contents himself with but a small section of the very large field which his French contemporary traverses, is more full and, perhaps we should
say, more instructive. His work is divided into two parts, tho first. treating of "Architecture," the second of "Church Furniture," includ- ing such subdivisions as "Altars," "Altar Furniture," "Crosses and Reliquaries." The volume is furnished with nearly two hundred illustrations ; some of them, which have been very judiciously added by the translator, exemplifying some of our own architecture.
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