From The Morning Post: “The Pageant.” Rev. of The Pageant, vol. 1¹

One of the many curious developments of modernity is manifested in a return to long-abandoned usages which in the distant past had a basis of rationality, but which now savour only of affectation. An example is provided in “The Pageant,” a miscellany which in its appearance as well as in its matter shows a strange combination of the new with the old. The association of excellent modern type and paper with the old-fashioned device of printing in the right-hand bottom corner of each page the first word of the succeeding one is somewhat incongruous. Doubtless in old times the custom was very useful for the guidance of compositors and binders; but in these days of machine printing it can have no object at all—unless it be considered ornamental. But in any case, if this old usage is worth adopting, it is worth adopting consistently, and it is thus with some feeling of surprise that one finds it in evidence on some of the pages while it is ruthlessly discarded on others. Perhaps, however, it is the consistency of incongruity that is aimed at, a supposition that gains some colour when we find Mr. Whistler associated with Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Mr. Will Rothenstein with Botticelli in the table of “Art Contents,” while in the “Literary Contents” appear a translation of a full-flavoured and not very choice old Dutch poem, together with some verses by M. Paul Verlaine and a sufficiently “modern” article by Mr. Max Beerbohm, who declares that he will “write no more,” a determination that may well be regretted if he has the courage to carry it out, especially if he is capable of many more such conceits as “Only art with a capital H gives any consolation to her henchman.” The literature begins with a poem by Mr. Swinburne, entitled “A Roundel of Rabelais,” in connection with which it may be anticipated that the subjoined request, “that this poem should not be quoted as a whole in any publication,” will be generally respected. Among the literary matter that is deserving of attention may be mentioned Mr. Theodore Watts’s metrical story of “David Gwynn—Hero or Boasting Liar,” which deals with an episode of the Spanish Armada, and Mr. W. Deleplaine Scull’s “Alfric,” an imaginative sketch that portrays one of the incidents of a Danish raid on the English coast with considerable force. Mr. J. W. Gleeson White has a paper on “The Work of Charles Ricketts,” to whom he awards unmeasured praise, while he points out with charming candour the fatuity of those uninitiated persons who cannot appreciate the pictorial problems and the poems in line that that artists create. The writer remarks that “it would be foolish to indulge in rhapsodies which would be superfluous to those who know and unintelligible to the rest.” In spite of Mr. Gleeson White’s encomiums, however, one cannot fail to observe in the examples of Mr. Ricketts’s art that are provided in the book an unquestionable instinct for decorative effect and a great deal of imagination. Indeed, if his work stood alone, much genuine admiration might be accorded to it; but when it is accompanied by such high praise, the reader naturally looks for something approaching perfection, and the weak drawing of the figures in “Œdipus,” as well as the fish-like line of “Psyche in the House,” which might otherwise have passed without comment, thus become strikingly apparent. In the two examples that are given of the work of Sir John Millais that artist is not seen to advantage. The frontispiece by Dante Gabriel Rossetti is a characteristic specimen of his work, though too “spotty” to be successful as a decorative design. Mr. Watts’s “Paolo and Francesca” is a powerful work reproduced in a satisfactory manner, while the animated delineation of “Perseus and Medusa,” by Sir E. Burne-Jones, is in striking contrast with his “Sea Nymph.” Mr. Whistler’s “Brother” is a suggestive drawing in which the effect of firelight is conveyed by the simplest means, and a reproduction of Botticelli’s recently discovered “Pallas and the Centaur” will certainly interest the many admirers of that poetic painter. The inappropriate interleaving of the plates with the letterpress is one of the discordant elements that help to make “The Pageant” remarkable.

¹The Pageant, 1896. Edited by C. Hazelwood Shannon and J. W. Gleeson White. London: Henry and Co.