RETROSPECT

OF

LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND ART IN 1902.

LITERATURE.

THE Conclusion of the war in South Africa and the Coronation of King Edward VII., whilst interfering with the ordinary flow of publications, stimulated the production of a special kind of literature. The impressions of combatants and eye-witnesses on both sides, the personal experiences and semi-official accounts of the Boer leaders, furnished materials for future historians of a costly war of which the necessity may not seem apparent to posterity in either Great Britain or South Africa. The long reign of Queen Victoria and the neglect of state pageantry which had marked the later years of her homely life had made the public forgetful of the possibilities of Court ceremonials, so that the number of volumes bearing on this subject was not out of proportion to the interest aroused. The revival of religious controversy was another feature of the year's literature. Orthodox and Liberals, the eager defenders of the Established Church and its more or less hetorodox members, showed more clearly their respective attitudes, and the extent to which forbearance was prudent and possible. In poetry the year was singularly barren-the older writers contributing only fugitive pieces, whilst no new claimants pressed for recognition. In fiction the supply of works showed no falling off in point of number, but there were few if any works of prominent merit or importance. A sensible decline in both realistic and sentimental novels was the most characteristic symptom of the change in public taste. Neither Mr. Marion Crawford's "Cecilia," Mr. Henry James's "Wings of a Dove," Mr. Anthony Hope's "The Intrusions of Peggy," nor Mr. Barrie's "Little White Bird" was of a kind to raise higher the reputation of their respective authors; but Mr. Seton Merriman's "The Vultures" and Mrs. Craigie's "Love and the Soul Hunters" were cordially received by their admirers. Among the less familiar names Mr. George Douglas, Mr. Arthur Morrison and Mr. Richard Bagot secured a stronger hold upon the public; and Mr. Mason and Mr. Joseph Conrad made successful attempts to arrest its notice.

ART.

The first volume of the Papers of the British School at Rome (Macmillan) fully justifies the efforts made in the last year of the nineteenth century to establish a centre for the better study of Roman antiquities -classical and religious. Mr. Rushforth deals with the Greek and Latin inscriptions on the gravestones of Sta. Maria Antiqua, a building which antedates its use as a Christian church. Mr. Brightman and two of his colleagues devote much time and care to the discussion of the frescoes and paintings with which the church was decorated at a later period. Mr. Ashby deals with the local roads of the Campagna, of which two at least-the Via Labicana and Via Prænestina-still retain marked traces of their Roman origin. His contribution will be of special interest to topographers; but each paper in the volume shows that even those who have visited Rome in a well-disciplined frame of mind have much to learn from the labours of the British School, and would do well to enlarge its sphere of usefulness.

The old Umbrian city of Siena has attracted Mr. Hobart Cust to write about its Pavement Masters (Bell & Sons), and Mr. Gilbert Hastings about Its Architecture and Its Art (De La More Press), of which the first named is a minute study of one of the chief features of the Cathedral. Its designing is supposed to have occupied the attention of artists for nearly a century, but no name of first-rate importance is connected with a work which has no parallel in any other Italian church. Not the least interesting and original feature of Mr. Cust's work is his investigation of the rise and fall of the popularity of certain mediæval saints and legends, as shown in their treatment on the pavement. Mr. Hastings' work is rather a cursory survey of the principal men whose names are connected with Siennese art and architecture, than an appreciation of their several styles.

Lord Ronald Gower's Sir Joshua Reynolds, which forms one of the British Artists Series (Bell & Sons), adds very little to our knowledge of the painter's life, although it contains reproductions of some of his less known works. On the other hand, Mr. R. Chignell's J. M. W. Turner (Walter Scott Publishing Co.) tells us little not already known about the painter's art; but it shows his character in a far more pleasing light than his former biographers have done.

William Hogarth, by Austin Dobson (Heinemann), is a costly work, in which the claims of Hogarth to a high place as an artist-as distinguished from the moralist-are put forward, and comes as a valuable supplement to the same author's life of the artist. The text of the former work has been reprinted, apparently with some slight additions, and it is now illustrated by as fine reproductions of the artist's works as photogravure can supply.

The simple title of Old English Masters Engraved, by Timothy Cole (Macmillan), conveys a very inadequate idea of the work upon which the most accomplished engraver of the day has been engaged for so many years. For the first time an attempt is made to discard the ordinary methods used by engravers when dealing with the old masters, and to employ wood assisted by photography in translating their works.

C

From Hogarth to Constable and Turner, Mr. Cole has made such selections of the works of the masters of the intervening years as will give a most effective display of their respective methods. These and the painters' aims are fully discussed by Mr. John C. Van Dyke, himself a competent artist, who supplies the historical and critical notes to the volume.

Mr. P. G. Konody's The Art of Walter Crane (Bell) is a tribute by a foreigner to the service rendered to the Renaissance of British Art by one of its earnest, if not always discreet, champions. It is as a decorator rather than as a picture painter that Mr. Walter Crane's work is valued. He has carried on-and in a sense carried out-the traditions of William Morris, in co-operation with whom he devised many charming designs. His strength is better appreciated when free from mediæval inspiration and his own fancy is allowed full play. Such is Mr. Konody's verdict, and it will probably be generally endorsed.

Mr. Bernhard Berenson's Study and Criticism of Italian Art (Bell & Sons) is a further help to those who would wish to base their admiration upon knowledge. The unimportance of many points on which a critic or a connoisseur often dwells is brought out in a very straight-forward manner. Mr. Berenson found, when previously dealing with the "Methods of Constructive Art Criticism," that abstract theories were difficult to enforce. He chose, therefore, a concrete case, that of Lorenzo Lotto, but even in this guise Mr. Berenson's method failed to attract the attention it truly deserves. It may be thought that in clearing away "the false idols" which have hitherto sustained the critics, namely, contemporary documents, traditions and personal impressions, he has left them very little to support their views and opinions.

BELLES-LETTRES.

In his study of The Beginnings of Poetry (Macmillan) Professor Gummere, of Haverford College, U.S.A., supports the theory of those who hold that the origin of poetic expression is to be found in the tribal or communal feeling, and not in the initiative of the individual. The best part of his work is that in which he illustrates the emergence of poetry in the various crises of life, the most primitive form being probably in the war and festal dances, and again in funeral ceremonies.

The Epistles of Erasmus (Longmans), by Francis Morgan Nichols, is the first instalment of a work which, if completed, will be an important addition to our comprehension of the spirit which moved over the closing years of the Dark Ages, and ushered in the New Learning. In the present volume Mr. Nichols deals with the years prior to the opening of the Reformation period under Luther, and in view of the fact that Erasmus's letters are his best biography, Mr. Nichols has limited bimself to translating them literally, arranging them chronologically, and explaining them by notes and comments on the more obscure allusions. The clear, impartial summaries by which the various chapters are connected furnish the reader with all that is necessary to bring before him the part played by Erasmus, more or less willingly, in the great strife brewing on the Continent.

Sir Leslie Stephen's Studies of a Biographer (Duckworth) are the autumn fruits of the author to whom we owe that almost classical series of essays published under the title of "Hours in a Library." The materials at hand for such writings are practically inexhaustible, but it is given to few to galvanise into life some of the dry bones of an almost forgotten past. Sir Leslie Stephen has this gift, and never writes without giving light and leading to his readers, or without bringing before their eyes the conditions under which his personages lived and worked. The most noteworthy study in these volumes is that on Shakespeare-a well-worn theme, on which, however, Sir Leslie Stephen has much that is new to say and much to suggest. He invests even Robert Southey with interest by showing the generous side of the vain man's character; he ranges at ease among characters so diverse as those of Milton and Dr. Donne, Ruskin and Huxley, not to mention many others who have left their names in English literature.

Mr. Stopford Brooke's criticism of the Poetry of Robert Browning (Isbister) is welcome and satisfactory, for whilst marked with poetic insight it shows a wider range of knowledge than the majority of those who have written about Browning. The popularity which he now enjoys is due to the fact that both he and his great contemporary have taken up the positions they are destined probably to occupy in English literature. Whilst they both lived there was a certain rivalry between the poets, and still more among their followers as to their relative claims. Mr. Stopford Brooke weighs these claims with great judg ment. He recognises that much that Browning wrote is obscure, but that there are always rays of light in the darkest places by which the poet's thought can be followed. He used his powers to suggest problems of life here and hereafter, which are beyond the ordinary scope of the poet, and fall rather within the range of the philosopher.

The new series of English Men of Letters (Macmillan) was inaugurated by a careful study of “George Eliot " by Sir Leslie Stephen. After giving a biographical account of the author's life and literary career, he endeavours to replace her writings on the pinnacle they once occupied in public estimation. Sir Leslie Stephen readily admits that her laborious attempt to advocate political reforms or philosophic schemes through the medium of novels was unlikely to have any permanent place in literature. But George Eliot's knowledge of men and women was so true and delicate, that one cannot but hope and believe that some of the characters introduced into her novels will remain as types of nineteenth century thought and feeling. Mr. Augustine Birrell makes a similar attempt on behalf of William Hazlitt—who is in more danger of falling out of remembrance. Hazlitt's chief claim to posthumous fame rests upon his successful efforts to raise artcriticism to a more worthy position in literature. In his literary judgments on his contemporaries Hazlitt spoke with freedom and often with severity, and the history of his friendships and animosities, of his struggles and his failures, vividly brought before us-mostly in his own words-in Mr. Birrell's impartial review of his eager, stormy, but enjoyable life, makes the volume both useful and readable. John Ruskin is dealt with by Mr. Frederic Harrison, who dwells more upon

the character of his subject as a social reformer than as an art-critic. The later years of his life were largely devoted to the study of economic problems, and to the practical application by himself of the rules he laid down for others. Mr. Frederic Harrison renders full justice to the nobility of Ruskin's aims, and speaks of him with reverent sympathy.

In the same series Matthew Arnold has been treated by Mr. Herbert Paul, who brings out with great clearness the literary side and the personality of a distinguished but imperfectly appreciated man of letters. Mr. Paul points out that Matthew Arnold's poetry appeals too exclusively to the cultivated class for him to become a popular poet. He left, however, an abiding mark upon the literature-prose and verse -of his period, and the chief aim of his life was to raise both the mental and moral standard of his contemporaries. As critic and essayist Arnold pursued the same course, and it was his constant warfare against the "low civilisation of the English middle class" which distinguished him from the majority of those who found a wider public.

It was difficult for Sir Alfred Lyall to say anything new about Tennyson, who is the subject of his volume of this series, but he has admirably carried out the modest but useful task he has set himself. This is "to combine a short biography of Tennyson with a running commentary on his poems as they illustrate his intellectual habit and the circumstances of his life." Mr. Austin Dobson's knowledge of eighteenth century life and literature enables him to make attractive the story of Samuel Richardson, whose name is more familiar than his works to the majority of his countrymen. The author of "Clarissa Harlowe" and "Sir Charles Grandison" deserves a place among Englishmen of letters, and however little one may think Richardson knew of the aristocratic circles in which his characters were placed, he left a fair estimate of the part they played in the imagination of the middle class.

Lord Avebury (better known as Sir John Lubbock) has conferred upon lovers of nature, and lovers of their own country, a real boon in giving them an insight into the causes to which the present aspect of The Scenery of England (Macmillan) is due. The book is not the result of hasty generalisation, but of careful investigation and study. Two sets of folds in the earth's crust, crossing each other at right angles, may, according to Lord Avebury, have occasioned the two great systems of intersecting lines and determined the course of the rivers. He conducts his readers through the successive changes through which British—including Welsh-geology has passed; and recounts the various disturbances through which the island must have passed before evolving its present features of gentle but nowhere surpassed beauty.

Mr. Austin Dobson's Side Walk Studies (Chatto & Windus) are obviously supplementary to his various "Vignettes" of the literary personages of the eighteenth century. They are written with his accustomed delicacy of touch, combined with obvious sympathy for the period in which Peg Woffington and Fielding, Mrs. Delany and