LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11854, 4 January 1902, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

.:;J '::.■,■'.'.' :.■:..- e» It is said .that Lord Wolseley is writing i his reminiscenes. : ' , Professor Lanciani's latest volume, " New 1 Tales of Old Rome," will be published imt. mediately by Messrs. Macmillan. . Messrs. Dent will publish immediately Dante's "Purgatorio, . completing ■■. the i " Temple Classics" edition of the "Divine ' Comedy." "An Exile in Bohemia," by Mr. Ernest E. Williams, 'a novel dealing ; with ;an aspect of the Catholic Church, will be published shortly by Messrs. Greening and Co, " The Roman Handbook to the Textual Criticism of: the New Testament," by Mr. F. G. Kenyon, of the British'-Museum/- will . be published at once by Messrs. Macmillan, i Mr Herbert Paul's article on Mr. <: Gladstone in'"The Dictionary of National Biography" was a compressed. "Life," .':' which • is now to be issued by Messrs, Smith,: Elder, ■ and Co. in its original form. Messrs. Cassell and Company "publish Sir ! Robert Ball's new work, " The Earth's Be- \ ginning." The book is based on the course - of lectures given last year at the Royal Institution, with revisions and additions. Mr. Clifton Johnson, whose pleasant books, ' "Among English Hedgerows" and "Along French Byways " will be remembered, is . publishing with Messrs. Macmillari. a companion volume, " The Isle of the Shamrock." The Summits of Success" is the title of a new book by Mr. James Burnley, which Mr. Grant Richards' will publish immediate"ly. The object of the volume is to present " sketches of the careers of notable men who' have achieved success in trade, commerce, and industry. . : . - The Rev. Dr. F. G. Keating has written: a little book entitled "The Agape and the Eucharist," which will be issued immediately by Messrs. Methueh. It brings together the ancient references to the Agape and explains the si elation between the" Eucharist and the Love-feast in early Christian times. - A new work on "Scotland's Cathedrals," by W. E. Leicester Addis, will be published by Mr. Elliot Stock immediately. It will present the history from the earliest times of all the cathedrals and abbeys and the associations connected with them. The work will be illustrated throughout from recent photographs. - Under the title of "A Historic View of the New Testament." Dr. Percy Gardner is publishing with Messrs. A. and C. Black the lectures delivered by him on the new. Jowetfc Foundation in London. /The pur- '■: pose is to sketch in clear outline the kind; of view of the books of the New Testament to-which we are led by modern historic method and criticism. The Exhibition of Portrait Painters, now. on view at the New Gallery, is, perhaps, more interesting as an example of the variety of opinion that exists among painters as to what constitute a portrait than from the intrinsic merit of the large number of exhibits. There is Mr. Lavery, who has been dominated by the interest "of the effect of black or white or cream on grey; who despises all accessories; who, if "he does not always please, will always be attended to. There is Mr. Watts, who paints character impressively, despising sometimes' the claims of the flesh ; there is C. Shannon, who revels in the curves of a flounced dress, to him the body is an accessory; or Whistler, who loves a great deal of neutral and a tiny bit of pink or red to him the face is an accessory, yet he generally con veys all that is required of it. There is the Hon. John Collier, who pins his subject flat and bodily upon the canvas and cries, " We have him." There are, besides these, some pictures by the Prussian painter, Von Leubach, that must be carefully considered— notably a courageous, dignified, and kindly half-length portrait of the late Emperor Frederick, and a charnrflgly simple pic-: ture of his baby daughter, sitting on the ground, her. hair about her eyes. There is: stately boy and dog which T. T. Shannon,, in his portrait of Lord Roos, gives us to find pleasure in; there is a quaint- study of Chinese tones of subdued red and brown in Mr Walton's "Miss Dorothy Thomas;" and there is a coarsened—almost brutal-— study of the man who sways the Papal counsels in Mr. Sauter's " Cardinal Rampolla."- • - —*——*———i