Chapter 142

W 7–197.

“Mr. Vaughan gives a generous interpretation to the Naples Riviera, including the Islands of the Blessed that float in a pellucid atmosphere in the enchanting bay. Everywhere he is resuscitating a dead past, from Herculaneumsubmerged in volcanic mud, and Pompeii long buried in a shroud of ashes, to Salerno of the once famous medical schools, to Pæstum with the temples that were dilapidated when S. Paul landed at Puteoli, and to Amalfi which was for a time supreme at sea till the now moribund Pisa contested the supremacy.” (Sat. R.) “The reader of these pages, therefore, will collect, with a minimum of effort, a little history, a little folk-lore, a little biography, a little literary reminiscence, and a little appreciation of the places which interest him in these parts.” (Ath.)

“‘The Naples Riviera’ is a paradise of colour. It is therefore an ideal subject for a colour-book, and an artist so conspicuously clever in seizing and reproducing an effect as Mr. Maurice Greiffenhagen could be trusted to make the most of such an opportunity.”

“This is an agreeable book upon a well-worn theme.”

“Altogether the book, though written with verve and sympathy, is somewhat melancholy reading. We are disappointed in Mr. Greiffenhagen’s drawings. They show evident traces of haste, and in some is a sad lack of perspective.”

Vedder, Henry Clay.Balthasar Hubmaier. **$1.35. Putnam.

5–37146.

Descriptive note in Annual, 1906.

“If much of the material were relegated to foot-notes or appendixes, the reader would feel more directly the charm, the tragedy and the great significance of the career to which Dr. Vedder has devoted so much sympathetic study.” William Walker Rockwell.

Velvin, Ellen.Behind the scenes with wild animals. **$2. Moffat.

6–40578.

“Interesting talks about the ways of animals, wild and tame, the perils behind the scenes in animal shows, the curiosities of animal life, the methods of animal trainers, and other kindred topics.”—Outlook.

“The disjointed way in which anecdote follows anecdote, and the lack of coherence between chapters and parts of chapters leave in the reader’s mind only a blur of disconnected facts. The single thing that approaches lasting value is the list of various species of mammals which have been bred in captivity.”

“She writes with animation and directness, and her narrative is enlivened by many capital photographs.”

*Velvin, Ellen.Wild animal celebrities. **$1 Moffat.

7–31196.

Here are told the life stories of celebrated animals in which “the author has sketched for us the events befalling the lions, bears, and elephants, from their wild days to the time of their captivity; and besides that, she has given us good insight into the dangers encountered by the men who are responsible for the animals on exhibition.” (Nation.)

“Such a book ought to be read by every one who visits collections of wild animals.”

Vernon, Ambrose White.Religious value of the Old Testament in the light of modern scholarship. **90c. Crowell.

7–10032.

A comparison of the earlier attitude toward the Old Testament with the present view of modern scholarship. While in sympathy with the higher criticism, the author holds to the belief that the Bible, every word of it, is true, and that it is the inspired word.

“Those who agree with the author will thank him for setting forth what they feel, with such eloquence. To those who are hesitating between the older and newer views the book will make a strong appeal through its spiritual earnestness and suggestiveness. But what will its effect be upon those who love the old wine of the ‘Infallible word?’ To them many of his epigrammatic expressions will appear irritating.” Kemper Fullerton.

“The discussion is concise, clear, and interesting, and should be read by every minister and Bible student.”

“Mr. Vernon ... has studied the problems of the Old Testament with conscientious thoroness, with painstaking use of the best literature, and with a singular faculty of discerning salient and significant facts and assembling details into a consistent picture.”

“Professor Vernon writes with eagerness, with evident sincerity and intensity of conviction, and there is a certain tension and activity in his style, which, while it may not leave his sentences always smooth, keeps one’s interest alert.”

“The aim of this little book is so admirable and the spirit is so praiseworthy that we regret to speak of it in criticism rather than in commendation. But it appears to us to be inadequate in its treatment of a theme where inadequacy is tantamount to error.”

Vianney, Joseph.Blessed John Vianney. (Saints ser.) *$1. Benziger.

“In the life of the Curé d’Ars we have a story of devotion and self-sacrifice, of magic influence over others, of shrewd common-sense and humour, so wonderful as to be almost past belief.”—Sat. R.

“A well-written and interesting sketch. It is clear, however, that the narrative is not free from exaggeration.”

“The admirable life of the Curé of Ars, written by his nephew, has been translated into English so idiomatic that one would scarcely suspect that the version is not an original.”

Victoria, queen of Great Britain.Letters of Queen Victoria: a selection from Her majesty’s correspondence between the years 1837 and 1861; ed. by Arthur C. Benson and Viscount Esher. 3v. **$15. Longmans.

7–36986.

While there is to be found political history in plenty in these letters, they constitute, in the main, a document “whose chief importance consists in revelation of character.... Even in her prejudices the queen commands admiration, while proof appears on every page of her innate rectitude; the masculine discernment which kept her feminine susceptibilities under control, her knowledge of business, which neither excused slackness nor pardoned obscurity, and her grasp of detail are all emphasized.” (Ath.)

“The general editing is worthy of the documents which it elucidates, though in the third volume Mr. Benson and Lord Esher lead their readers into one or two blind alleys, whence foot-notes might have extricated them.”

“The care and skill shown in editing and annotating this great quantity of miscellaneous matter are all that could be desired. Dr. Eugene Oswald has done good work in translation.” Percy F. Bicknell.

“If it were not for the greatest interest that attaches to the letters, their reading would be somewhat wearisome and would give little enjoyment.”

“There is, therefore, no use in denying that the interest of these volumes lies rather in the substance than in form. They do not give us quite the vivid and brilliant picture of the times, as they appeared when seen from the Throne, which a ‘Life’ might and probably would have given us. The book is, in fact, pre-eminently ‘a book for students of political history;’ it is a mass of material for the future historian of the reign.”

“It is, accordingly, the public aspect of the Queen which alone can give much interest to these volumes of her letters.”

“It is absorbing as history; it is, if possible, more absorbing as a revelation of the inner life of the great family of sovereigns.”

“It is in reality a human document of unusual value.”

“Those who only know Queen Victoria’s gifts as a writer through her Highland journals will be astonished when they read these volumes. To say that the book is of absorbing interest does it scant justice, for it is one of the great books of the century.” Jeannette L. Gilder.

“Despite the suppressions, enough has been left in the correspondence to render it not only interesting, but piquant and amusing. Mr. Benson and Lord Esher have received very efficient assistance. The introductory notes to the chapter, giving an historical summary of each year, are models of compression and accuracy.”

“Besides providing an intimate portrait of the Queen’s mind, it gives a fascinating picture of her times, and incidentally of the chief figures of the Victorian epoch. In our opinion, not a little of the success of the book—and from the historical and literary point of view it is a very great success—is due to the fact that the documents are as a rule quoted entire, and we are not put off with scrappy extracts and excerpts from letters.”

Viereck, George Sylvester.Game at love and other plays. †$1.25. Brentano’s.

6–28417.

“A series of short prose dramatic studies.... Of the six subjects treated, four are ... suggestive ... of a contempt for all the restrictions which prevent human society from relapsing into barbaric animalism.... The last two pieces, grouped under the single title, ‘The butterfly,’ are cast in the shape of the old moralities.”—Nation.

“The volume is remarkable not only for its promise but also for its accomplishment.”

“They may be dismissed at once as naught.”

“What Mr. Viereck may achieve in the future, if ever his rankly luxuriant boyish fancies acquire the ballast of solid learning and common sense, it would be hazardous to predict. At present, he is devoting precious gifts to futile and unworthy ends.”

“It is this collection that has now come to us ... as the first adequate representation in our tongue of a poet who has been compared with Shelley and Keats and Swinburne, Baudelaire and Heine.” Wm. Aspenwall Bradley.

“These little plays, cynically catching life at some unnatural angle, as they do, and cleverly, even brilliantly, done as they are, scarcely amount to a raison d’etre.” Richard Le Gallienne.

“Quite evidently not the result of experience but due to a somewhat decadent outlook upon life.”

Viereck, George Sylvester.House of the vampire.†$1.25. Moffat.

7–28969.

“His vampire is a personage of immense literary distinction, who moves among his contemporaries like a god, yet all of whose works are actually the product of others whose minds he enters, whose mental creations he steals, and whose vigor he saps.” (N. Y. Times.) Every note of originality which he discovers in any one he appropriates, reproduces as his own, justifying himself with this: “I carry the essence of what is cosmic ... of what is divine.... I am Homer ... Goethe ... Shakespeare.... I am an embodiment of the same force of which Alexander, Cæsar, Confucius, and the Christos were also embodiments.”

“Only in a few pages does Mr. Viereck succeed in producing the effects he strives for; the rest of it is crude and commonplace.”

“The difficulty with Mr. Viereck’s treatment lies in purely melodramatic conception of character, an utter lack of subtlety in dealing with the whole situation, and a distressing congestion of large words.”

“Except in the final scene, where its extravagances are in keeping with the subject, the style of the book is quite impossible. ‘The house of the vampire’ may be described as a tale of horror, keyed from the first word to the last in the highest pitch of tragic emotion.”

Viereck, George Sylvester.Nineveh and other poems. **$1.25. Moffat.

7–17378.

“In this volume of verse the author’s theme is, for the most part, the anguish and the joy of adolescence. Some of the best poems are glorious riots of purely sensuous passion; others are despairing cries to some solidity of stay amid the turbulence of sense. The poet and the immoralist are at war in many verses, but the poems are sane because the poet is the stronger.” (Bookm.)

“We have spoken unkindly of Mr. Viereck, because we feel that he has fine poetic possibilities; and all his self-confidence fails to convince us that he is not wrong in adopting the now too conventional part of defiant Titan.”

“Perhaps no poet now writing is more proficient in the loud symphonious lay, and the quality of Mr. Viereck’s vigorous, if unhealthy imagination is of a sort to be expressed very perfectly in his reverberating verse.” Ferris Greenslet.

“Mr. Viereck owes something to the world. His recent volume proves him to be indisputably a poet. It also indicates the lines along which he must develop in order to fulfil his promise. As yet his genius is greater than his talent. His verse has spontaneity, but not perfectedart; and it behooves him to study carefully the master poets and grow to greater sureness of technical effect.” Clayton Hamilton.

“Despite the note of sensuality only too apparent in these compositions, they are remarkable productions, and we trust that their licentiousness illustrates what will prove but a passing phase of their writer’s expression.” Wm. M. Payne.

“At times he is amazingly clever; tho, like clever children, he pays up for it by periods of dire fatuity.”

“With the exception of the amazing cleverness of this youthful verse there seems little promise in it.”

“Even Mr. Viereck’s sustained energy of phrase and the fine orotund music of his verse hardly avails against this vicious monotony of subject. The subject, however, is fortunately taken not so much from life as from a rather narrow segment of poetic literature.”

Reviewed by Wm. Aspenwall Bradley.

“He speaks in spontaneous and eloquent verse, melodious with the memories of the recurrent haunting harmonies of Poe, the sea-surge of Mr. Swinburne and the plangent tenderness of Oscar Wilde, and ringing also with a certain hammer-blow of passion which is entirely his own. He speaks with authority of the half-sensuous and half-religious hysteria of adolescence. Mr. Viereck is as yet only a possibility; but his possibility is glorious.” Clayton Hamilton.

“It will never set the poetic world on fire by its originality, for the writer has but a note and a half at best, and follows closely certain poets whom he obviously admires with extravagance. Mr. Viereck has as yet accomplished only a fair imitation of the real thing. A near-poet of twenty-two has still so much to learn.”

“He has not developed the ‘rhythmic effects’ he talks of by any device more essential than ingenious systems of indentation, which gives the printed pages a resemblance to parts of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ or a long-division sum. Similar affectations spoil his sense as well as his form.”

*Villani, Giovanni.Villani’s chronicle; being selections from the first nine books of the Chronicle Florentine of Giovanni Villani; tr. by Rose E. Selfe and ed. by P. H. Wicksteed. *$2. Dutton.

“Within the compass of twenty pages the author retells the tangled tale of Florentine political history, from the days of the Countess Matilda to those of Cosmo Pater Patriæ, handling his subject in a fashion which leaves the reader better informed as to the real forces at work throughout that troubled period than the perusal of many bulky volumes is likely to make him.” (Ath.) It throws light upon the historical allusions in the “Divine comedy.”

“Of the translation we can speak in terms of high praise, not only for its fidelity, but also for the admirable manner in which it reflects the garrulous grace and lively movement of the original.”

“Like Rambaldi’s Latin commentary on the ‘Commedia,’ Villani’s chronicle is a perfect mine of information in regard to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Tuscany, although less personal and not so anecdotal as the work of the Imola professor.”

“Mr. Wicksteed’s introduction shows all the qualities that might be expected from one of the most widely read of English Dantists. In a few pages he manages to throw a really searching light on the confused struggle of Florentine politics.”

Villari, Luigi.Fire and sword in the Caucasus. **$3.50. Pott.

7–7543.

“A vivid picture of the revolutionary outbreaks and the racial strife that have made many a scene of horror in parts of the Caucasus within the past year and a half.”—N. Y. Times.

“By his new book he will add considerably to his reputation.”

“Mr. Villari tells his story well. In his present volume the author makes few mistakes.”

“We have no hesitation in commending it to all who seek a competent guide with whose assistance they may penetrate behind the veil of silence or exaggeration which hides or distorts the truth as regards the situation in Russia.”

“The numerous reproductions of the author’s photographs are interesting, and add substantially to his narrative.”

“It is of permanent value because it is a careful study of the chief races living there—a study that was necessary to make some aspects of the political situation clear.” Cyrus C. Adams.

“Unlike the generality of writers upon Russia in the present day, however, he displays no animus against either government or people.”

“He has a facile pen, and is a master of the special correspondent’s variety of the ‘graphic’ style.”

Vincent, Charles John, ed. Fifty Shakespeare songs. (Musicians’ lib., v. 21.) $2.50. Ditson.

6–37861.

The Shakespeare songs to which this volume is devoted are grouped as follows: Songs mentioned by Shakespeare in his plays, Songs possibly sung in the original performances, Settings composed since Shakespeare’s time to the middle of the nineteenth century, and Recent settings.

“Many of the selections are practically unobtainable for the average seeker in any other form.”

“The editor has furnished excellent historical and critical notes on the songs.”

Vincent, James Edmund.Highways and byways in Berkshire; with il. by Frederick L. Griggs. $2. Macmillan.

W 7–45.

Nothing of guide book order and inclusiveness is found in Mr. Vincent’s description. He goes out of the beaten path, in fact, and “the reader is introduced to many an old country house not magnificent enough to be mentioned in the ordinary guide-books, but adorned each with its own legends and private tragedies.” (Nation.)

“His style is weighed down with mannerisms; and there is in the book too much about Mr. Vincent, with the result that Berkshire often comes off second best.”

“A volume of less than five hundred pages is bound to be an imperfect record of a county; but Mr. Vincent, who is an engaging guide as far as he goes, leaves too large a tract of the county out of his itinerary for this commonplace to do him service.”

“Berkshire has found in her new biographer a most sympathetic interpreter, one who knows how to read the meaning of the most trivial everyday incidents, and to trace their connection with those of days gone by.”

“The work is well designed for those who wish to know, but do not already know, this country of meadows and downs and dapper woods. But the Berkshire man will miss much, especially he who has had commerce with the southern and eastern sides.”

“The style of production, the illustrations and the spirit of the author will together insure the volume a wide popularity. Mr. Vincent is never dull.”

“The illustrations by Frederick L. Griggs are quaintly attractive, and the artist has caught the spirit of the text in a most happy manner.”

“On the whole he is a good and pleasant general guide, and his book one of the most thorough and interesting in the series.”

“Mr. Vincent informs all that he sees with his own joyous temper, and gossips of men and things in a spirit so frank and candid, yet so free withal from malice, that he would be a dull soul indeed who failed to catch the infection of his gaiety. Besides the light-heartedness to which he confesses in his preface, the writer brings to his task, literary acquirements of no mean order, a genuine love for the county of his adoption, an eye for the larger effects of nature, and a happy ease of style.”

Vinci, Leonardo da.Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, with critical introd. by Charles L. Hind. (Drawings of great masters.) *$2.50. Scribner.

“As Mr. Hind remarks, Leonardo da Vinci found in drawing the readiest and most stimulating way of self-expression. One welcomes with pleasure the extremely clear and fine renderings of some fifty of the drawings in this volume. The critical study by Mr. Hind is discriminating and sympathetic.”—Outlook.

Vinci, Leonardo da.Note-books; arranged and rendered into English, with introd. by Edward McCurdy. *$3.50. Scribner.

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