Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/25

 io* s.v. JAN. e, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

17

they form an indispensable portion of the equip- ment of the student. The notes which Dr. Birkbeck Hill supplies may be read with constant delight and edification, mixed with what is more than a little bewildering. We rise from their perusal with as much doubt of the value of criticism and the sanity of critics as we do from that of the separate items in the great Variorum Shakespeare, in which there is "but one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack." It is not easy, however, to overestimate the value of this edition as a contribution to literature.

ISHommett son Image- Par Ch. Moreau Vauthier.

(Hachette et Cie.)

ONE more of the sumptuous annuals issued by the great publishing firm of Hachette reaches us, and in some respects of luxury and beauty goes beyond its predecessors. In shape and design it belongs to the same order as * L'Image de la Fern me ' of M. Armand Dayot, Inspecteur des Beaux-Arts (see 9 th S. iv. 549), and the anonymous ' Portraits de PEnfant' (see 9 th S. viii. 515). It may claim, how- ever, to be more interesting than either, and goes far to establish the opinion or heresy that in man, as in other species, the masculine figure is worthier than the feminine. No serious attempt is made to prove this by drawings from the nude, or by repro- ductions of the masterpieces of ancient sculpture. One or two such appear. A wooden statue of Ramk or the Cheik el Beled, from the museum at Cairo, serves as a frontispiece ; the famous marble with bust s of Roman emperors and the like, being also supplied. As a rule, pictorial rather than plastic art has been called into request ; the likenesses are draped, or in ancient or modern costume, and are in nine cases out of ten those of known or recognizable individuals. The letterpress, moreover, is able, thoughtful, judicious, and the work may on its own merits be read with interest and advantage. Inci- dentally the book, like others of its predecessors, is a guide to pictorial art, and furnishes illustrations of the principal schools of portraiture in Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, England, and elsewhere. It is an apotheosis of the portrait painter's art, quoting the opinion of Baudelaire that the artist must see all that shows itself and divine all that lets itself be hid, depicting for us Jngres weeping with nervousness over his power- lessness to seize what he felt to be essential, and Delacroix suffering beneath his sense of incapacity.
 * Hermes ' of Praxiteles and the Vatican ' Hercules,'

The work of M. Moreau Vauthier is arranged under four heads, answering to as many periods : ' first, that of the athlete, which covers the whole of I antiquity; next, that of the swordsman ("1'honnne ! d'epee' ), which treats of the Middle Ages; then | that of the courtier, corresponding to the Renais- j aance ; and, lastly, " I'homme d'affaires," who domi- nates the period from the French Revolution until J to-day. These divisions are necessarily more or less arbitrary, but answer sufficiently well their purpose. They run into one another much as do the seasons, and the courtier of the time of Louis XIV. was pre-eminently also the man of the sword. The origin of the athlete is taken as found in Egypt, and the earliest designs are those of the Sphinx of Gizeh and the likeness of Rameses II., otherwise Sesostris, Pharaohs, and others. Assyrian and Greek art come next, and j busts of Apollo and Jupiter follow those of i Demosthenes and Socrates, and are in turn fol- !

lowed by those of Augustus, Pompey, Vespasian, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca. Men of the sword open out not too appropriately with Christ. We soon arrive, however, at portraits by M abuse, Diirer, Van Eyck, Holbein, Cranach, and Botti- celli, the portrait of Alva 1 y Antonio Moro being perhaps the deadliest as well as the most modern. A mere nomenclature of the heads of highest interest which we find in this section would require more space than we can afford. 'L'Homme de Cour ' section begins with Varin's portrait of Louis XIV. Among other portraits are Jacopo Palma's 'Aripsto' from the National Gallery; Titian's * Aretino ' from the Pitti Gallery ; Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velasquez, and Reynolds, all by the painters themselves. ' Les Hommes d' Affaires ' lead off with Napoleon I. by Houdin, unless we can regard as belonging to that category M. Rodin, who appears in the Preface. Distinguished among the remaining designs are the Due de Richelieu by Lawrence ; Nanteuil by Pagnest; Balzac, a very striking picture by Boulanger; Bertin by Ingres ; David, Gavarni, and Delacroix by themselves; a painter by Goya; Manet by Fantm-Latour ; Carlyle by Whistler; Emile de Girardin by Carolus Duran ; a young man by Millet ; Gerorne by Morot ; Pasteur by Edelfelt ; and Tolstoi by Prince Troubetskoi. A work in its class of equal interest is not easily to be recalled. Jncidental designs are no less noteworthy than the other features, and the whole is in an artistic binding of inlaid green calf. Such a gift-book would grace any collection, and delight the philosopher as well as the man of taste.

A Genealogical and Hera' die Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage, tt-c. By Sir Bernard Burke and Ashworth P. Burke. (Harrison & Sons.)

RATHER later than usual, in consequence of the desire of the editor to include so far as possible the promotionsnecessitated by thechangeof Govern- ment, the eminent and authoritative peerage of Burke the most important of existing works of genealogical reference makes its appearance. A supplement prefixed, contrary to the wont of such things, to the volume affords all information possible as to the outgoing and the incoming ministry. In common with all annuals, 'Burke' is subjected to the inconvenience caused by the fact that the date of publication coincides precisely with that of a political crisis, by the results of which nearly every page of the contents is affected. Some thirty odd columns of preliminary matter serve to minimize, so far as the reader and student are concerned, the inconvenience thus caused, and place the peerage in its established position of supplying the latest and amplest information. What in the preface is said about the new edition serves equally well for announcement

and comment. " Words seem hardly necessary,"

the work having been ''too long before the public, and [having] passed through too many editions, to need explanation cf its plan and scope, which remain without change through an unbroken career unparalleled in length" (the piesentis the sixty-eighth edition). Without its recurrent aid, genealogy in its mo*t interesting phases, and especially in its connexion with history and blazon, would be an unprofitable and ccmpaiatively umdi- fying pursuit, while England wculd lose its privi- lege of possessing a record of hereditary honour and