International studio (34.1908)

Reviews and Notices

Slaughter,” the artist certainly betrays a lack of
imagination.
The Cathedrals and Churches of Northern Italy.
By T. Francis Bumpus. (London : T. Werner
Laurie.) i6j. net.—The author of this new study
of the ecclesiastical architecture of northern Italy
has a very thorough grasp of his subject, writing on
it with the authority of an expert, yet so clearly
that even the lay reader who has studied it care-
fully will be able readily to recognise the distinctive
characteristics of the various styles described.
Mr. Bumpus has himself studied on the spot all
the cathedrals and churches dealt with, he has
closely examined the historical documents relating
to them, and has woven into his narrative with no
little literary skill the legends of the saints in whose
honour the beautiful buildings were erected, as well
as just enough of his own adventures on his travels
to give to his book the touch of human interest
that is always so potent an element of attraction.
His chapter on Ravenna is a very noteworthy ex-
ample of his special excellences, for it goes to the
very root of the matter, telling, to begin with, the
romantic story of the first introduction of Christi-
anity into the ancient lagoon city, defining the
peculiarities -shared by all its sacred buildings,
dwelling particularly on the evolution of mosaic
art and passing on to consider in chronological
order its marvellous assemblage of religious edi-
fices. The author’s valuable record is supple-
mented by a useful list of the mural paintings in
the churches noticed and by a number of good
black-and-white illustrations as well as a few less
satisfactory ones in colour.
English Church Furniture. By J. Charles
Cox, LL.D., F.S.A., and Alfred Harvey, M.B.
(London: Methuen.) js. 6d. net.—The joint authors
of this most useful book have managed to invest
the driest technical details with an interest that
cannot fail to appeal even to those who have never
hitherto considered church furniture from any but
the prosaic point of view. Numerous illustrations
culled from a great variety of sources, including
altars, church plate, pulpits, fonts, thrones, chairs,
almeries, chained books, holy water stoups, can-
delabra, lanterns, embroidered altar-cloths, etc.,
brighten up a text in which there is not one dull
page, and that represents a vast amount of close
research and arduous labour. The opening chap-
ter on altars traces the evolution of the ornately-
carved stone table, such as that now in use in
Holy Trinity, Coventry, set up in 1625, out of the
unadorned slab of wood or stone of the first four
centuries of the Christian era ; that on communion

plate, in spite of all that has recently been written
on the subject, is full of new information, whilst the
one on fonts, the longest and perhaps the most
fascinating in the book, describes a great number of
typical examples of pretty well every period from
the third to the eighteenth century.
A Bachelor Girl in Burma. By G. E. Milton.
(London : A. & C. Black.) js. 6d. net.—The
mystery in which the beautiful land of Burma and its
childdike people have been for centuries shrouded
as with a veil has of late years been almost entirely
cleared away, several keen observers having thor-
oughly explored the country. For all that, much
still remains to be discovered by later gleaners, and
Miss Milton in her delightful volume gives a most
vivid picture of the daily life of the Burmese, with
whom she managed to become thoroughly en
rapport in her wanderings, although all her con-
versations were carried on through interpreters.
Gifted with a fine sense of humour and with quite
unusual powers of description, she contented her-
self with recording everything she saw worth
noticing in her extended wanderings, refraining
from wearying the reader with historical disserta-
tions borrowed from others. “ I saw things and
heard things,” she says, “ and they amused me ; I
told them to others, and they amused them, and
so I have written them down on paper in the hope
they may amuse even those I do not know person-
ally.” The illustrations are all from photographs
taken on the spot often under very great difficulties,
and give a most excellent general idea of the people
as they actually are.
William Hogarth. By Austin Dobson, Hon.
LL.D. Edin. (London : Heinemann.) 6x. net.—
This book is a new and enlarged edition of the
work as published in 1891 and again in 1898.
In it Mr. Dobson succeeds in painting a very
convincing picture of Hogarth in his environment.
In the suavity of its fine touches his writing may
perhaps be compared to the painting of the late
Lord Leighton. We have nothing but wonder for
the author’s great patience in research and admiration
for his adroitness in marshalling evidence of what
Flogarth did at such and such a time and how he
did it. Mr. Dobson’s methods are so complete in
this respect that if the painter himself could return as
a shade and protest that things were not as repre-
sented we should tap this authoritative work with
confidence and be forced to disbelieve him. That is
the art of biography—the accumulation and careful
array of mniutice—as Mr. Dobson practises it. Of
art criticism there is very little, but many pictures
are carefully described, and the narrative is supple-
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