d its own
distinct conceptions of scenery in the mind of its reader which must
make any ordinary pictures setting off familiar lines tame and insipid.
It is the triumph of art when the artist can bring out meanings and
beauties in the text hitherto undreamed of; but we acquit the artists of
the present book of any failure in that respect, for their intention
seems never to have gone beyond amiable commonplace. The little cuts are
all pleasant, trim, and, if not suggestive, at least not sufficiently
the reverse to be displeasing. The head-pieces to the cantos are
extremely good, and the two scenes "There is a pleasure in the pathless
woods" and "There is a rapture on the lonely shore" we like sufficiently
well to exempt them from the accusation of insipidity.

Happy the poet who lives to see one of the poems he carelessly flung off
in early youth come back to him in his old age in such a setting as is
here given to Dr. Holmes's "Last Leaf." "Just when it was written," the
author says in his delightful and characteristic "_Envoi_" to the
reader, "I cannot exactly say, nor in what paper or periodical it was
first published. It must have been written before April, 1833,"--that
is, when he was in the early twenties. The poem has always been a
favorite, its sentiment suggesting Lamb's "All, all are gone, the old
familiar faces." It must henceforth be ranked as a classic, for it is
the happy destiny of the two artists who have worked together to give it
this exquisite setting forth to make its actual worth clear to every
reader. They have put nothing into the lines which was not there
already, but they have shown fine insight in their choice of subjects
and in conveying delicate and far-reaching meanings. They have
subordinated--as designers do not invariably do--their instinctive
methods and capricious inclinations to a careful study of their subject.
The result is--instead of a pretty but chaotic decorativeness
interspersed with florid and meaningless exaggerations--a complete and
beautiful whole marred by no redundancy or incongruity. Their full play
of intelligence brought to bear upon the suggestions of the poet has
developed a series of pictures which give occasionally a delightful
sense of surprise at their grace and unexpectedness. For example, the
three which illustrate

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom

have absolutely a magical effect. Besides the full-page pictur