Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/525

 9th S. IV. Dec. 30, '99.] 549 NOTES AND QUERIES. chiefly by the aid of Hesiod, and Latin theories of the world and matter without discussing Lucretius. We note, however, quotations from the poets Ticket (mc), Young, Brooke, Mallet, Knowles, Brandon, Maturin, Dana, and Bowring as some slight compensation. L'lmape de la Femme. Par Armand Dayot. (Paris, Librairie flachette.) Among books intended as New Year's gifts the place of honour must be assigned to this well- written, edifying, and superbly illustrated work of M. Armand Dayot, Inspecteur des Beaux-Arts. " Books of Beauty" was a title bestowed a couple of generations ago upon works reproducing the features of the women of the day most celebrated for their physical graces and endowments. With much more justice may the title be claimed for the present sumptuous work, which gives us the best types of female beauty, from the Princess Harm- habit, who lived at the commencement of the nine- teenth dynasty, or thirteen hundred years before Christ, to Mademoiselle Bartet, now of the Comedie Franc&ise. The idea is supremely happy, the execu- tion is admirable, and the volume, in its handsome and richly gilt morocco binding, is one of the most covetable of treasures. Not easy is it to describe what a wealth of illustration there is enclosed within its covers. The book is, moreover, one for the drawing-room and the boudoir. French books concerning la femme" we have in abundance, not a few of them in their display of nudity hovering between the licentious and the obscene. Nothing ofthekindis here. The portraits are reproduced from Botticelli, Leonardo, Titian, Holbein, Vandyke, Sir Joshua, Nattier, Greuze, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Romney, Ingres, Carolus Duran, Rossotti, and the Marchioness of Granby, with others beyond count. They are one and all scrupulously and rigorously chaste, those nuditis de gorge to which the painters of the rather tousled beauties of the Court of Charles II. were prone, and against which French ecclesiastics vainly fulminated, being concealed, the portrait by Lely of that graceless nussy Nell Gwyn, here spoken of as " Lady [!] Gwynn," being carefully draped. On the other hand, some charming designs, with just the right tinge of humour or satire, are now, so far as we know, seen for the first time. See, for instance, on p. 16, the charming design of Ramberg, so delightfully suggestive of the Sphinx. The great churches of Amiens, Bourges, Chartres, Strasbourg, Poitiers, and elsewhere, supply some delightful types of "vierges sages ou folles," in which the mediaeval sculptors showed themselves inspired artists. Those with any acquaintance with art who have not yet seen the volume can conceive Rubens, down to the ' Mrs. Siddons' of Reynolds and Gainsborough and the 'Lady Hamilton' of Romney. It is not claimed that all the historical characters presented are of ideal beauty. In spite of her broken nose, Cleopatra, in the supposed bust of Damnos Pacha, is anything but " a dowdy." Henrietta of England, Marie Leczinska, Dubarry when stricken with years, Mile. d'Epinay, reduced to a thread by persistent dyspepsia, and Marie Antoinette in her later years, are not pre- sented as types of beauty. Of such, however, there is abundance, and the pages may be turned over with constant amusement and delight. The literary execution is excellent, the chapters on seventeenth and eighteenth century art being specially ad- mirable. England contributes a fair share of beauty to the volume; Lady Hamilton as Euphrosyne, by Romney, is one of the most effective of the designs supplied- English admiration for Romney is shared by M. Dayot, who speaks of him in terms of just and discriminating eulogy. We were not aware that our admiration for Benjamin West and some contemporary artists had been excessive. What- ever enthusiasm may once have been felt has, at any rate, long since evaporated. We are in one or two cases a little puzzled. Who is the Lady Cairnthers whose portrait by Romney is said to be in the Sedelmeyer collection ? Is there such a name as Cairnthers: or is it possibly a misreading of Larruthers? We ask this since we twice find W™> printed for Villiers, " Lady Gertrude Wilhers, par J. Williers." This we can only assume to be the Gertrude, Lady Villiers, the fourth daughter of Francis, Earl (afterwards Marquess) of Hertford, whose portrait by Calze was engraved by Finlayson (see Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotint Portraits,' vol. ii. p. 484). We shall be glad, if in error, to be set right. The work is admirably artistic in all respects, and the very initial letters and other devices are a treat to the eyes. Genealogical and Historical Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage. By Sir Bernard Burke, C.B., LL.D. Edited by Ashworth P. Burke. (Harrison & Sons.) On the death of Sir Bernard Burke the editorship of the popular and authoritative peerage so long and honourably associated with his name passed into the hands of his two sons, Mr. Ashworth P Burke and Mr. H. Farnham Burke, now Somerset Herald (see18* S. vii. 139). Since that time, which was marked by an infusion of fresh energy, the task has fallen wholly into the hands of Mr. Ashworth Burke, by whom the new edition—the sixty-second —is issued. 1 he changes in this are apparent to the most casual observer. What first arrests the attention is a finely executed portrait of Sir John Bernard Burke, who, though he was not the founder of the Peerage ' which first appeared in IS* under the editorship of his father, John Burke, was responsible for it during a period not very far short of half a century. The portrait, which is by Mr. Harold Burke, shows his ancestor^ in his robes as Ulster King of Arms. This conces- sion to the subscribers is sure to be valued Another alteration which at once arrests attention is the important enlargement of the key to the work, which now includes the names of all entitled to a place in the scale of general precedence, con- stituting thus a feature the value of which will be universally recognized. Reference is greatly facilitated by the fact that the type has been entirely reset, and that a separate line is afforded to every member, living or dead, of the peers and baronets. Peerages recently dormant or extinct have been removed from their place at the back of the work, as a species of appendix, to their proper position m that alphabetical arrangement the adoption of which at once raised 'Burke' to the supremacy it now enjoys. We have previously dwelt upon the amount of labour, all but incredible to those who have not looked into the subject, involved in keeping the information up to date