ILLUSTRATED BOOKS.
Ma. DONALD IfaxwaLL's Unknown Kent (Lane, 12s. 6d. net), with many drawings inlineand colour by the author,is-rightly named
in so far that he has seen districts which the tourist does not frequent, and has found picturesque material where the artist does not look for it—especially among the cement works on tho Lower Medway and on the flat shores of the Isle of Grain and Sheppey. Mr. Maxwell says that while travelling in the East,- in the Garden of Eden, he " began to realize the richer pictorial possibilities of the Garden of England." His clever sketches of industrial Kent—notably " The Nearer East," a night view of lime-kilns below Bluebell Hill, near Aylesford--are even more attractive than his drawings of the old bridges and churches and the half-timbered houses in which Kent is rich. He writes gaily of his adventures in a sailing-boat on the Thames and in a motor-boat on the Upper Medway. He takes a keen interest also in archaeology, and devotes a chapter to the rediscovery of what was probably a Roman road from Lympne to Ashford and Maidstone. Altogether this is an interesting and amusing book.
Miss Joan Evans has written a scholarly and interesting account of English Jewellery from the Fifth Century to 1800 (Methuen, 52s. 6d. net), which, with its many -fine illustrations, is one of the most attractive books of the season. She empha- sizes the national character of English jewellery, though she is not blind to the technical and artistic superiority, in certain periods at least, of the Continental craftsman. "Jewellery, like other arts, has less splendour and breadth of treatment in England than in Spain. Italy is our mistress for beauty, France for grace, and the Low Countries for originality of design ; yet there is something peculiarly to our English taste in the pro- ductions of our nation at almost every period of her history." That is well said, and it is justified by the concise and judicious review of the subject which follows. Some of the Anglo-Saxon work is of great merit. William of Wykeham's mitre and crozier at New College show what our mediaeval jewellers could do. The Tudors had a passion for fine jewels, and the chapter on Henry VIIL's and Elizabeth's superb collections is parti- cularly good. Holbein designed ornaments for Henry. Mary Queen of Scots had some wonderful jewels, which are known from portraits and inventories. Her son, James I., inherited her taste for trinkets and employed English jewellers, besides George Heriot, of Edinburgh, and the talented Dutchman, Arnold Lulls. Some of the Stuart jewels here illustrated are of great beauty. With the Restoration, French influence came in and soon became dominant. But as the eighteenth century wore on, the English manufacturers of cut steel ornaments, with Wedgwood medallions, set a new fashion, to which the French jewellers succumbed. After the Revolution the Paris jeweller, Odiot, had " to send his son to London to study the English methods of gold work, which had ceased to be artistic and traditional, and had become mechanical and industrial." The revival has come in our own time Miss Evans gives a coloured frontispiece showing some very famous things, such as the Armada jewel and the Drake " enseigne " and pendant.
Mr. Felix Gade's Collecting Antiques for Pleasure and Profit (Werner Laurie, 18s. net) is a pleasant account of his experi- ences, recalling his successes--even in Australia—and giving some of that sound advice which the beginner in collecting invariably disregards. The numerous illustrations are interesting.
The late Sir W. S. Gilbert, it seems, retold his most popular comic opera as a story, which has now been published. The Story of the Mikado (Daniel O'Connor, 6s. net) is amusingly written, as we should expect, and includes the songs ; it is illustrated with some clever sketches in the manner of Japanese prints by Miss Alice B. Woodward.
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