Studio: international art (39.1907)

Reviews and Notices

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, and other Pageants
for a Baby Girl. By W. Graham Robertson.
With twelve designs in colour by the author.
(London: John Lane.) ~]s. 6d. net.—In some of his
earlier works, notably the "Old English Songs and
Dances" and "Old French Songs of Canada," Mr.
Robertson proved how thoroughly in touch he is
with the romance of the long ago; in this last publi-
cation he has, with rare skill, brought the remote
past into the present, proving his realisation of the
fact that child nature has ever been essentially the
same, as well as his deep insight into the secrets
of that nature. The little ones to whom his
charming poems are primarily addressed will
rejoice in their swing and rhythm, their innate
sense of the reality of the mystic realm of fairyland;
but in the hearts of those whose childhood is past,
a vibrating chord of pathos will be struck, so vividly
does many a pregnant line bring out all that is lost
by growing up. With the " Gold, Frankincense
and Myrrh," a true masterpiece of child litera-
ture, are bound up a charming birthday pageant,
" The Wishing Well," full of quaint fancy and
happy suggestion, and a "Masque of Midsummer
Eve," that, with its exuberant gaiety and under-
current of sadness prescient of the death of
summer, will rank with the exquisite " Masque of
May Morning" of last year, in which the author
touched perhaps his highest point of excellence as
poet and painter, though many of the drawings in
his new volume, especially the charming Portrait of
the three-year-old maiden, forming the frontispiece,
The Fallen Skies, The Folk in Green and The Call
of Dawn, are as remarkable for delicacy of imagina-
tion and feeling for form as anything Mr. Robertson
has previously produced.

The illustrated catalogue of the exhibition held
this year at the Guildhall, of works by the Early
Flemish painters, which has been prepared by
Mr. A. G. Temple, the Director of the Gallery,
by special sanction of the Library Committee
of the Corporation of London, and published by
Mr. Arnold Fairbairns (\os. 6d. net), will serve
as an appropriate memorial of that interesting
event. Mr. Temple contributes a brief introduc-
tion containing biographical accounts of the masters
represented. Between forty and fifty of the works
exhibited are reproduced, and explanatory details
are furnished in regard to nearly all the pictures
comprised m the exhibition. The entries are
numbered from i to 80, then follow 99 and 109,
but no explanation is given of the double hiatus.

Messrs. T. C. & E. C. Jack, of Edinburgh, who
have established for themselves a well-deserved
280

reputation as publishers of good things in juvenile
literature, have added to their list several volumes
which will not escape the notice of dispensers of
gifts at this season. Foremost among them is
The Child's Life of fesns {\os. 6d. net), an elegant
volume of some 400 odd pages of clear type, in
which Mr. C. M. Steedman tells anew the old, old
story with such simplicity of language as becomes
a narrative intended for the young. An interesting
feature of his presentment is the use he has made
of legends, verses, and anecdotes from many
sources which throw light on the Gospel records ;
while in Mr. Paul Woodroffe, who contributes thirty
coloured pictures, he has found a collaborator who
has throughout treated the sacred themes illus-
trated in a spirit of reverence and sympathy. In
The Golden Staircase (*}s. 6d. net) we have another
attractive volume, containing a comprehensive col-
lection of poems, secular and sacred, chosen with
discernment by Louey Chisholm from the writings
of a hundred different authors, present and past,
with a series of sixteen delightful pictures by
Mr. Dibdin Spooner. Miss Chisholm is also
responsible for the sheaf of sixteen fairy tales
told again in The Enchanted Land (75. 6d. net),
and special praise is due to Miss Katharine
Cameron for the coloured illustrations accompany-
ing them, which reach a high standard of excellence.
Messrs. Jack have also added several volumes to
the two series of dainty books for children which
have been before noticed in these pages—the
"Told to the Children" series and "Children's
Heroes" series (is. 6d. per vol. net). — Two
illustrated books for children published by Messrs.
W. & R. Chambers deserve a word of com-
mendation. In The Browns: A Book of Bears
(3s. 6d.), the escapades and frolics of Bruin
and his family are treated with pleasing pictorial
effect by N. Parker; and in The Knight Errant
of the Nursery (3s. 6,5?. net) Mr. W. Parkinson
illustrates by a series of coloured and black and
white pictures (among which we observe some
displaying a fine sense of colour) the military
exploits of a young warrior of seven or eight.
—Four thrilling stories for boys of riper years,
each accompanied by numerous black and white
illustrations, come from Messrs. Frederick Warne
& Co. In three of them—Loyal and True, by
H. Escott-Inman, The Second Form Master of
St. Cyril's, by the same author, and Clive of Clare
College, by J. Harwood Panting—the story turns
mainly on the events of school life, while in the
fourth, Kidnapped by Pirates, Mr. S. Walkey and
his pictorial collaborator, Mr. Paul Hardy, have