(4) Poems of the Plain and Songs of the Solitudes.  By Thomas Bower Peacock. (G.  P. Putnam’s Sons.)

(5) Holiday Recreations and Other Poems.  By Alexander Skene Smith.  (Chapman and Hall.)

(6) Poems.  By George Morine. (Bell and Son.)

A FASCINATING BOOK

(Woman’s World, November 1888.)

Mr. Alan Cole’s carefully-edited translation of M. Lefebure’s history of Embroidery and Lace is one of the most fascinating books that has appeared on this delightful subject.  M. Lefebure is one of the administrators of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs at Paris, besides being a lace manufacturer; and his work has not merely an important historical value, but as a handbook of technical instruction it will be found of the greatest service by all needle-women.  Indeed, as the translator himself points out, M. Lefebure’s book suggests the question whether it is not rather by the needle and the bobbin, than by the brush, the graver or the chisel, that the influence of woman should assert itself in the arts.  In Europe, at any rate, woman is sovereign in the domain of art-needle-work, and few men would care to dispute with her the right of using those delicate implements so intimately associated with the dexterity of her nimble and slender fingers; nor is there any reason why the productions of embroidery should not, as Mr. Alan Cole suggests, be placed on the same level with those of painting, engraving and sculpture, though there must always be a great difference between those purely decorative arts that glorify their own material and the more imaginative arts in which the material is, as it were, annihilated, and absorbed into the creation of a new form.  In the beautifying of modern houses it certainly must be admitted—­indeed, it should be more generally recognised than it is—­that rich embroidery on hangings and curtains, portieres, couches and the like, produces a far more decorative and far more artistic effect than can be gained from our somewhat wearisome English practice of covering the walls with pictures and engravings; and the almost complete disappearance of embroidery from dress has robbed modern costume of one of the chief elements of grace and fancy.

That, however, a great improvement has taken place in English embroidery during the last ten or fifteen years cannot, I think, be denied.  It is shown, not merely in the work of individual artists, such as Mrs. Holiday, Miss May Morris and others, but also in the admirable productions of the South Kensington School of Embroidery (the best—­indeed, the only really good—­school that South Kensington has produced).  It is pleasant to note, on turning over the leaves of M. Lefebure’s book, that in this we are merely carrying out certain old traditions of Early English art.  In the seventh century, St. Ethelreda, first abbess of the Monastery of Ely, made an offering to St. Cuthbert of a sacred ornament