idylls of the King. Illustrated by Eleanor F. Brickdale. (Hodder
and Stoughton. 15s. net.)—Miss Brickdale has tried to recreate the actual scones, and to paint them as if they wero before her in real life. The result is what always happens on such occasions : tho imagination is suppressed and the costume model walks about in a landscape of to-day. Lancelot, in a red cloak standing under a willow watching the barge with the body of Elaine moving down the stream, is a ease in point. The landscape is treated with tiresome and realistic minuteness and unvital detail ; in the middle of this setting the figure impresses us no more than that of a posed model. There is no magic, no poetry such as the subject demands, and contrast forces us to remember how Rossetti treated such things. No doubt it may be said that here we have a continuation of the manner of the youthful Millais. But Millais, in spite of his realism, brought to bear an ardour which transmuted his materials, and even he was not able to do this for long.
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