Two fine volumes, of which without pictorial help we can
give no adequate idea, are Some English Gardens, after Drawings by George S. Elgood, with Notes by Gertrude Jekyll (Longmans and Co., 42s. net) ; and Italian Villas, with their Gardens, by Edith Wharton, Illustrated with Pictures by Maxfield Parrish (John Lane, 21s. net). The subjects of the first are taken from some of the finest gardens in the United Kingdom. We may mention Brockenhurst, where the Italian style has been most successfully adopted ; Great Tangley, a comparatively new creation, but of rare beauty; Montacute (where the "Yew Alley" is conspicuous,—there is something like it at Yewden, near Henley-on-Thames) ; Brickwall (near Northiam, Sussex), a splendid relic of Tudor times ; and Penshurst, to which two pictures are given. We have mentioned a few of the most familiar names; but any one of the fifty drawings here reproduced might be spoken of with praise. Some, it should be said, simply represent masses of flowers, but they are, in their way, as effective as the others. For the second of these volumes some of the most important regions of Italy have been laid under contribution. The arrangement is, indeed, geographical. We begin with Northern Italy (Florence and Siena), and go on to Rome and its environs; then we retrace our steps to Genoa, Lombardy, and end with Venetia. This is a notable volume, all the more so from the archaeological and historical associations which it recalls.
MADAME GUYON'S POEMS.
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