nt. The one on music is much better, and
Mr. Symonds gives us a most interesting description of the gradual steps
by which the Italian genius passed from poetry and painting to melody and
song, till the whole of Europe thrilled with the marvel and mystery of
this new language of the soul. Some small details should perhaps be
noticed. It is hardly accurate, for instance, to say that Monteverde's
_Orfeo_ was the first form of the recitative-Opera, as Peri's _Dafne_ and
_Euridice_ and Cavaliere's _Rappresentazione_ preceded it by some years,
and it is somewhat exaggerated to say that 'under the regime of the
Commonwealth the national growth of English music received a check from
which it never afterwards recovered,' as it was with Cromwell's auspices
that the first English Opera was produced, thirteen years before any
Opera was regularly established in Paris. The fact that England did not
make such development in music as Italy and Germany did, must be ascribed
to other causes than 'the prevalence of Puritan opinion.'

These, however, are minor points. Mr. Symonds is to be warmly
congratulated on the completion of his history of the Renaissance in
Italy. It is a most wonderful monument of literary labour, and its value
to the student of Humanism cannot be doubted. We have often had occasion
to differ from Mr. Symonds on questions of detail, and we have more than
once felt it our duty to protest against the rhetoric and over-emphasis
of his style, but we fully recognize the importance of his work and the
impetus he has given to the study of one of the vital periods of the
world's history. Mr. Symonds' learning has not made him a pedant; his
culture has widened not narrowed his sympathies, and though he can hardly
be called a great historian, yet he will always occupy a place in English
literature as one of the remarkable men of letters in the nineteenth
century.

_Renaissance in Italy_: _The Catholic Reaction_. In Two Parts. By John
Addington Symonds. (Smith, Elder and Co.)

MR. MORRIS'S _ODYSSEY_
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, April 26, 1887.)

Of all our modern poets, Mr. William Morris is the one best qualified by
nature and by art to translate for us the marvellous epic of the
wanderings of Odysseus. For he is our only true story-singer since
Chaucer; if he is a Socialist, he is also a Saga-man; and there was a
time when he was never wearied of telling us strange legends of gods and
men, wonderful tales o