A PASTORALE.t
Ma. ClIARLES SIMPSON is an artist who has devoted himself to the study of birds and animals, but now he has written and illustrated a short work in which the literary and temperamental qualities surpass the pictorial, at least so far as the woodcuts illustrating the book are concerned. The miss en sane is quite simple. The artist, who wishes to study rare birds, takes a deserted cottage in a Sussex marsh, and not only draws and studies the wild life but feels the mystical inspiration of Nature—what he with great charm and understanding calls the Cosmic Symphony—and is able to convey this feeling to those who are receptive. Music is referred to, and by its help many subtle soul states, which can only be evoked by the most penetrating of the arts, are called up ; and in this connexion, naturally, it is the later phases of Beethoven that are the doors through which we pass to the enchanted lands.
It must not be supposed that the writing is merely rhapsody, for it is quite unaffected, and details of ordinary life take their place naturally, though never insistently. Many of the villagers are alluded to, but one man, an old shepherd, stands out as a personality with his unconscious love for the Cosmic Symphony. The Pastorale ends with a night spent at his but on the downs, when the writer saw the unfolding of the drama of sun- rise and translated it in his mind into terms of music—perhaps the only medium possible tor a theme so elemental " The Earn raised his quiver of light from the horizon to the zenith and smote the grassy slopes with a shaft of fire. Every blade flashed before the conflagration, under this hail of arrows
• The Complete Works of SO Philip Sidney. Vol. II. Edited by Albert Feuillerat. Cambridge : at the University Press. Ms. tel
t A Pastorals. By Charles Simpson. Published by Charles Simpson, St. Ise; Cornwall.
of fiame, as the sun burned- his way through the kindling blue. . . . The solitary figure of the shepherd stood beside the gathered flock, and then led them quietly to other pastures. Slowly he wandered with them down the hillside."
The woodcuts which Mr. Simpson has made to go with his text do not exactly fit it in feeling. They seem uncouth and wanting in sense of style. One chapter is called " Ariaso Dolente," and the illustration which accompanies-it is all that is opposite to the perfectly finished beauty of style which characterizes this movement of Beethoven. The scattered composition of the print, with the staring white and oppressive blue and black, seems quite out of keeping with the text, the subtlety of which finds no response in the drawing. This is a pity, as it causes a break in the unity of the work. The woodcut facing page 34, showing the cottage in a storm, is an excellent design, well thought out in the skilful way the ungraded dark and light are made expressive ; but might not a pleasanter colour have been found to print it with instead of the heavy purple blue ? The book has been produced at St. Ives, in Cornwall, by one type- setter and one printer, and is an excellent piece of work.
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