New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-04-16
BOOKS AND AUTHORS
Current Talk of Things Present
and to Come.

and to Come.
an article Of particular interest 10
Americans has been contributed ~ MI.
L. G. Howe to the forthcoming number
IF "scribner's." II deals with CITY
Building IN Germany" a subject which
az travellers are learning. IL studied with
remarkable results in that country
! It's yrieeous thing that Mr.. Thomas
Hardy. who Is not poet, should con-
unue to write so-called verse. he mas
Just published a poem in commcnora-
ton OF swinburne, the first st1nza OF
which runs thus:
In this fair niche above the unslu"serins
That sentrys Up and down all night al
DAY.
From cove to promontory. from ness &c
The Rates have fifty hidden that he
should be
! How can a man of genius, as Hardy
undoubtedly is. consider this true
poetry?
A history Of our Civil War-a COM
pendious and scientific account of the
whole var'-has been written by John
Formby. an Englishman. and is now On
the Scribner press. Its contents include
many plans of battles.
II is stated that in the lately discov-
cred first draft of Goethe's Wilhelm
Meister'' there are two hundred pages
which are absolutely new. The remain
ing four hundred are those which are
now known TO the reader. Many Of
these new pages are valuable i'm the
sense that they are autobiographicsl,
shedding light on the authors mind in
his early youth. The manuscript Is in
process of editing and will be published
in due time.
| The portly volume. entitled Oriental
Carpets, Runners and Rugs. and Some
jacquard Reproductions" which we
have received from the Macmillan COM
! pany is surely one Of the oldest produc-
| tons we have encountered in a long
time. 1t is luxuriously printed, IL is
freely illustrated with good reproduc-
tons in color and with other plates, Il
contains several pages OF photography
and has q most carefully prepared in
dex. Handsomely bound in white and
gold. and with decorative end papers.
its external appearance suggests that
| The author, Mr.. Sydney HUMPHREYS. has
something 10 say which he considers de-
serving OF exceptional form. AS a mat
| ter of fact, this turns out to be a kind
lnf Cpr.e NH f9fr "a he e,,sI, 10.
thrown quantity or miscellaneous
notes about all sorts of things that have
interested hinl-the story of Jason, the
| picture galleries of Italy. the old violin
makers. the life Of Colbert. the French
engravings OF the eighteenth century,
English painters, Lord Byron. and so on
| through a veritable jungle. There are
also some pages on jacquard, the in
ventor Of the loom which bears his
name. 4 patient examination Of the
| extraordinarily discursive observations
/ in the volume has revealed nothing Of
any moment whatever, and the char
/ acter Of the authors style may he
/ judged from this sentence. Without
wishing to give any invidious distinc-
ton, IL may be remarked that Of all
/ British Artists there is not one OF whom
IL can be more truthfully said that the
impressionist Nature schools of all ma
lions owe as much TO John Constable as
Art generally does to the example of the
classical masters. taken individually
We gather that Mr.. HUMPHREYS likes
beautiful things and likes TO talk about
/ them, but i'm spite Of this We arc at q
loss to perceive just why he has made
| this book.