ITALY, THE MAGIC LAND.*
QUITE half of this not unattractive volume is concerned with the genius of Rome, especially as interpreted by American sculptors and other artists. Among these, the author's enthusiasm, rapturously expressed, is aroused in particular by the work of Mr. Franklin Simmons; and if her readers have not had the advantage of visiting his studios in Rome, or seeing his chef-d'eeuvre at Washington, the photographs she gives of some of his finest things will be enough to show them that her praise is not altogether unfounded. American art of every kind has had so much to do with Rome, and the American artists who have made Italy their Holy Land have been and still are people of so much talent and distinction, that any new record or criticism of their doings must be a matter of interest to the world at large. Perhaps Mrs. Whiting's zeal is not always quite according to knowledge ; perhaps some of those whom she so lavishly praises might have preferred a more moderate use of all the strongest and most excessive words in the language. And yet she writes in such absolute good faith; her admiring enthusiasm is so transparently honest, so
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Italy, the Magic Land. By Lilian Whiting. Illustrated from Photographs, London : Cassell and Co. [7e. 6d. net.]
evidently inspired by the sunshine and the beauty of the Italy she loves, that one can hardly reconcile oneself to finding fault with its expression.
And it would be a mistake to conclude that the author has little interest in Rome beyond its associations with American art and its modern sociabilities. She gives ns a good deal of " fine confused " reading, sometimes quite enjoyable as taking one back into scenes unforgettable, about palaces and museums, the Vatican, St. Peter's, the villas in and out of Rome, Albano and its sister townri, the Campagna, and all that one would like to believe =changeable in that enchanted world. Then, again, in the midst of her joy in what is old, in the Rome which can so easily be destroyed and never replaced, she startles us by suggesting to American capitalists that they might find it "an admirable financial enterprise" to begin building operations in the way of modern apartment hetes. She was assured that "the Italians would never per- mit," but the answer seems to have discouraged her very little.
On the whole, and in spite of occasional diSigreement, we like the Roman part of Mrs. Whiting's book the best. In Naples and Venice, though taking delight in both, she appears not quite so much at home. She writes a pretty chapter on St. Francis and Assisi, and there is a good deal of interest in her final pages on the general life of Italy.
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