CURRENT LITERAT URE.
ART-BOOKS.
Spain : the Story of a Journey. By Josef Israels. (John Nimmo. 12s. 6.1.)—This record of a holiday journey by the great Dutch painter is delightful reading throughout. There is observation not only of picturesque things but also of men and manners, and, moreover, everything is touched with humour and good feeling. There is an amusing description of the Hotel at Toledo, where a General and his family dined at the table d'h(Ite, and departed "amid much cheering and blowing of trumpets" ; and where a Marquis tried to sell wine to the traveller, leaving with fury when unsuccessful. The author gives an account of his visit to the print-room of the Royal Library at Madrid, where he asked to see a certain collection of prints, and was told that this collection consisted of eighteen hundred portfolios. It turned out that " each portfolio contained only ten or fifteen prints, and was filled up with blotting and tissue paper, and I thought to myself that, had it been left to me, I could easily have reduced the eighteen to one hundred. But that is just like Spain,—everything must always be done in the large and grandiose manner; everything must be made to take up room. True, there is always room for everything." M. Israels' compari- son of Velasquez and Rembrandt is most interesting; he naturally prefers the Dutchman, but he is quite alive to the greatness of the Spaniard. The traveller seems to have had a happy knack of getting into conversation with people of all classes, and thus shows that wide sympathy for all men that we should expect from his pictures. The only part of the book we regret is the chapter on the bull-fight he saw at Madrid, which comes as a shock from so humane a man as the author. The translation of Mr. de Mattes reads excellently, and there are, besides a portrait of the author, reproductions of many of his sketches.
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