622 



The Review of Reviews. 



n the whole Mr. James has produced a book which 

 lirows light on an important subject about which the 

 verage firiton is extremely insutticiently, if at all, 

 iiformed. 



A LOVER OF INDIAN ART. 



The Ideals of Indian Arf, by E. B. Havcll (Murray. 

 5s. net), is another voluir.e wriitcn by an Englishman 

 rho is held in universal esteem by Indians. He is 

 he man who saw beauty in Indian art when all 

 ^)ritons derided it as grotesque. He it was who, as 

 lie Principal of the Calcutta School of Art, revived 

 he old traditions of Indian art, and refused to permit 

 t to die because of the neglect of the natives of the 

 oil. As a result of his efforts Indians are now 

 ncreasingly appreciating the folly of slavishly copy- 

 ng ^Vestern technique, and are working hard to 

 leyelop their own school. Mr. Havell makes out a 

 plendid case in favour of Indian art, and those who 

 i-ant to know just what its ideals are must go to his 

 leautifullv illustrated book in order to learn about 

 hem. 



A RECHAUFFfi OF " TIMES '' ARTICLES. 



India and the Durbar (Macmillan. 5s. net) is a 

 eprint of articles on India which originally appeared 

 11 the " Empire Day Edition " of the London Times, 

 in May 24th this year, They are written by many 

 uthors, though their names do not appear at the 

 leads of the various chapters. In point of view they 

 re different from the books that already have been 

 iientioned. 'I'hey cover a multiplicity of subjects, 

 nd are informing though not universally correct. 



LIVES AND LETTERS OF NOTABLES. 



'i'he last month brought us several books which 

 nable us to revive much of the history of men of letters 

 n the nineteenth century. The first place must be 

 liven to Mr. E. T. Cook's labour of love — his magnum 

 fius—lht Life cf John Ruskin (Allen. 21s. net). No 

 me was better qualified to write the life of that most 

 irilliant of English writers, most original of English 

 iioralists, most suggestive of critics than Mr. Cook, 

 lis book will take its place with Froude's " Carlyle " 

 nd Morley's " Gladstone." A very different kind of 

 lOok, but one which sheds a flood of light upon the 

 ge of Ruskin, is the Aufcbiogra/'hic Metnoirs of 

 '■'rederic Harrison (Macmillan. 2 vols. 30s.) Mr. 

 '"rederic Harrison was one of those who passed under 

 he spell of Ruskin before he became a devotee of 

 Vuguste Comte. In these two delightful volumes the 

 loquent octogenarian gossips with pleasant garrulity 

 oncerning the times in which he has lived and the 

 lien whom he has known. Mr. Harrison is rare good 

 ompany. A hot-gospeller of Comtism, he has lived 

 ileasantly and well. His style is admirable; his 

 lolitical judgments are those of a theorist rather than 

 liose of a statesman. But his two volumes make 

 apital reading, and his account of his spiritual pil- 

 rimage is deeply interesting. .Another book that 

 L'calls memories of many nineteenth century worthies 

 i Letters to William Allingham (Longmans. 7s. 6d.). 



In this volume there are letters from Tennyson, 

 the Brownings, the Carlyles, George Eliot, Thackeray, 

 Dickens, Rossetti, Morris, Millais, and a host of others. 

 In one of F. W. Newman's letters it is mentioned that 

 John Bright seriously contemplated appealing to the 

 subscribers to the Anti-Corn Law League to erect a 

 great university in Manchester. The scheme was 

 snuffed out by the foundation of Owens College. 



The difference between autobiography and bio- 

 graphy could hardly be better exemplified than by 

 two other volumes, the Biography of Archbishop 

 Maclagan, by F. D. How (\Vells Gardner. i6s. net), 

 and Bishop Boyd Carpenter's Some Pages of My Life 

 (Williams and Norgate. 15s. net). Mr. How had a 

 difficult task, and he has performed it admirably. 

 The biographer is usually hindered by his very 

 respect for his subject, unless he be a Boswell, whilst 

 the man who writes his own story is hampered by no 

 such drawback. The information Mr. How gives of 

 this soldier-priest is invaluable, the picture of a noble 

 man and his contemporaries full and clear ; but after 

 all they are but a series of impressions, whilst on the 

 other hand the Bishop of Ripon's book reveals the 

 man himself without a trace of self-sufficiency. Story 

 after story gives some new delight, for Dr. Carpenter 

 is as ready to tell us of his love as a child for his 

 " jinnies " as of the conversations he held with Queen 

 Victoria or his work in a London parish. His father 

 lived in the times when two incumbents of opposing 

 views could l)e appointed to the same church ; and 

 the Bishop him.self could give a description of the 

 Crystal Palace in its 185 1 beauty. 



The Letters of George Borrow to the Bible Society, 

 edited by T. H. Darlow (Hodder and Stoughton. 

 7s. 6d. net), though not actually called a biography, 

 contain a complete history of the wonderful years 

 Borrow spent in Russia and in Spain. The letters 

 themselves, together with the replies and communica- 

 tions of the Bible Society to him, have only lately 

 been unearthed from the crypt of the Bible House. 

 They are a treasure which no student of Borrow can 

 deny himself. This reader of the Bible in thirteen 

 languages disdained no physical labour in pursuit of 

 his ideal aim. 



Those who like " Tristram Shandy " and " A Senti- 

 mental Journey " — that is to say, those who like them 

 very much — will welcome Lewis Melville's Life and 

 Letters of Laurence Sterne (Stanley Paul and Co. 

 28s.). In these two volumes a painstaking admirer 

 and biographer has collected all that there is to be 

 known of the author of " Tristam Sliandy," and 

 reprinted all his extant letters. For Mr. Melville it 

 has been a labour of love. But except for devotees 

 it seems hardly worth while. 



Mr. Carnegie on his birthday astonished the world 

 by publishing a list of its twenty greatest men. 

 C. C. Cairns has written a book (Jack. 7s. 6d.) 

 entitled A Bock of Notable Women, which tells the 

 story of the lives of twelve women, viz., St. Margaret 

 of Scotland, Catharine of Siena, Vittoria Colonna, 



