Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/516

 92 LITEBATUBE. [1899.

pioneer and hunter, and his book is fall not only of vivid recollections but of much information of value on natural history and on the fauna x)f the Pacific slope.

Turning to less distant and adventurous forms of sport, we find some attention paid to fishing, and must mention particularly the volume which Sir Edward Grey contributed to the " Haddon Hall Library," under the title Fly Fishing (Dent). Sir Edward Grey is known in political life as an effective orator, and in the world of sport as a master in the art of angling. In this book he shows also a distinct literary gift, not only in his lucid statements of the precepts of fishing, especially with the dry fly, but in his agreeable descriptions of country scenes.

Art.

Books on art — on the history of art as distinct from its technique — continue to pour from the press in great numbers, dealing with schools of art and still more often with single artists, and illustrated with finely reproduced examples of their work. Of the latter class Messrs. Bell are publishing a series of handsome volumes, from which we may select for special mention the Velasquez of Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, containing much sound and fresh criticism. Dr. G. C. Williamson's Bernardino Xmini, from the same publishers, is a careful study of the works of an artist whose fine qualities were first revealed to English- men by Mr. Ruskin. Another monograph of great value to the student of Renaissance art is Giovanni Bellini (Unicorn Press) by Mr. Roger E. Fry.

Other book 8 of merit deal with schools or periods of art. French Painters of the Eighteenth Century (Bell), by Lady Dilke, brings before the English public a number of closely related French masters, of whom, with the possible exceptions of Watteau and Fragonard, they know very little. Her treatment of them is that of a careful and appreciative student, and displays moreover no small literary skill. The entire range of French art is covered by Miss Rose Kingsley in A History of French Art (Longmans). In a little over 500 pages she investigates the racial factors which have manifested themselves in French architecture, sculpture and painting, and reviews the develop- ment of these arts during the last 800 years. Considering the vastness of the theme and the limits of space at her disposal, Miss Kingsley has produced a very useful book. Two books dealing with the art of modern times in two special continental countries are Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century (Sampson Low), by Max Rooses, the second volume of a work of which the first was published about a year ago ; and the History of Modern Italian Art (Longmans) by Ashton Rollins Willard.

Of modern English artistic movements nothing has of late years attracted more attention than pre-Raphaelitism. Last year we had, from Mr. W. M. Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelite Diaries and Letters (Hurst & Blackett), which is full of material for the history of the movement. It contains some early letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, parts of a diary of no very great interest kept by Ford Madox Brown, and extracts more

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