International studio (35.1908)

Reviews and Notices

be achieved in the present, to understand the
reasonableness and continuity of the various steps
taken in the past; and he passes on to examine
at length the underlying causes of the success of
the old craftsmen who were true artists in their
way, enforcing his arguments by many drawings
and sketches that will be of great use to the lay-
reader.
The Summer Garden of Pleasure. By Mrs.
Stephen Batson. With thirty-six illustrations in
colour by Osmund Pittman. (London : Methuen
& Co.) 155. net.—A love of flowers and of gardens
is, more or less, common to us all, and Mrs. Bat-
son’s book should make, therefore, a very wide
appeal. She approaches her subject with the same
care as that with which, one can see, she tends her
flowers. Guided always by a keen artistic per-
ception she has made countless experiments in her
garden, of which she here gives us the valuable
results and conclusions. Starting with a chapter on
the Wild Garden, she next leads before us the
pageant of the flowers from April to September,
devoting an interesting chapter to the “ rout of
August ”—that interregnum after the splendid show
of June and July, and before the late flowering
plants are in bloom; and shows how, by the use of
annuals, and also by a judicious sacrificing of some
of the glories of high summer, the garden may be
made to present still a bright appearance during
this difficult month. Though she often speaks of
the fits of despondency to which all garden lovers
are prone when they see the but too imperfect
results of all their great care, she writes with an
enthusiasm that is infectious, and while to those
whose lot is cast in the country the book will be
of great interest and real practical value, to the
town-dweller it will be an ever-present delight. To
add to its value, the flowers are indexed both under
their English and Latin names. As illustrations to
the text Mr. Osmund Pittman’s drawings are ad-
mirable, and each in itself is a delightful represen-
tation of some charming garden scene. Especially
one would mention Plates III. and IV., showing
a copse carpeted with primroses and with wild
hyacinths, while the pictures of the authoress’s own
garden at Hoe Benham are, in the light of her
remarks, particularly interesting.
The Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer. By
David Duncan, LL.D. (London : Methuen &
Co.) 15$.—One or two drawings reproduced in this
book, chiefly portraits made by Spencer in his youth,
acquaint us with an unknown side of the philo-
sopher, for, though conventional in treatment, they
are not devoid of artistic feeling, as witnessed by

the correctness of proportion and the ability to give
expression in a face. Ability to draw is the
frequent accompaniment of rare intellectual activity,
and the sense of proportion was a manifest quality
of Spencer’s thought. The fact that he had at one
time the intention of bringing the subject of art into
the wide net of his philosophy should interest us in
his attitude towards it. His judgments on indi-
vidual works of art were perhaps made from other
than a purely artistic standpoint, but that he would
have been capable of an illuminative generalisation
on the evolution of the artistic sense we cannot
doubt, and of all the scientific writers of his time
his mind seems to have approximated the most
nearly to that of the artistic type in its confidence
in intuition. The evolutionary interpretation of
things, too, on which his philosophy was built up
indicates wide fields for its application to art and
its development from its primitive rudiments. But
of Spencer’s philosophy itself little is said in this
volume. It is a plain, outspoken narrative of a life
which, uneventful as it was in the main, apart from
the conception and elaboration of that philosophy
and certain incidents in early life, yet has sufficient
interest to justify a biography, and yields lessons
to us all. The biographer makes no attempt to
conceal the philosopher’s shortcomings, nor on the
other hand does he give undue prominence to his
virtues. In its conspicuous candour and fairness
it is in fact just such a biography as Spencer
himself might have wished written.
The Path to Paris. By Frank Rutter. With
illustrations by Hanslip Fletcher. (London:
John Lane.) ior. 6d. net.—Out of the multitudes
who annually make their way from Britain to
Paris, how many are there, even among those on
sight-seeing bent, who take the path chosen by
Mr. Rutter and his pictorial collaborator, who,
crossing from Southampton to Havre, journeyed
on bicycles along the romantic banks of the
Seine to Rouen? The route is of course much
longer than the more frequented ones, and the
relatively long sea-passage is no doubt an obstacle
to many; but there can be no two opinions about
its superior interest both on the score of pictu-
resqueness and on account of the historic associa-
tions bound up with the places on the way. To
the artist it offers an exceptionally rich and varied
field of exploration, and in fact the ground is
already familiar to not a few English painters.
Mr. Rutter’s pleasant book of travel talk, written
throughout in a chatty, humorous vein, should be
the means of gaining for the route traversed by
him a larger measure of public favour. Mr. Hanslip

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