Reproductions of Pictures
by Dr. Samuel Kinns, and published on commission. Dr. Kinns, after carrying on a private school in North London for some thirty years, was ordained a priest of the Church of England in 1886. The first of his two books, "Moses and Geology," was in its twelfth thousand by 1891, when "Graven in the Rock," designed to prove the harmony between the Bible and Assyrian and Egyptian monuments, appeared. This book also had a large sale. Dr. Kinns had been industrious in beating up subscribers, and he showed immense industry also in the compilation of his books, especially "Graven in the Rock." While engaged upon it he is said to have spent six hours daily on five days in the week at the British Museum for the space of three years. His literary style was a marvel of discursiveness, and his books were pervaded from beginning to end by an entirely inoffensive egotism, which only brought into relief his enthusiastic belief in the theories he had espoused. Personally he was one of the most amiable of men, who probably never made an enemy. But the success of his books must be regarded as one of the curiosities of literature.
It is impossible to enumerate the art works produced at La Belle Sauvage, but in addition to those mentioned incidentally elsewhere two may be specified as representative, one of colour, the other of black-and-white reproduction—"The Water Colour Drawings of J. M. W. Turner" and "The National Gallery," edited by Sir E. J. Poynter. The former consisted of fifty-eight of Turner's subjects, with descriptive text by Theodore Andrea Cook; the latter contained a reproduction of every picture in the Gallery at Trafalgar Square and that at Millbank, two of the volumes being concerned with the Foreign Schools and the third with the British Schools. A numbered edition, published by arrangement with the Trustees, won unstinted admiration. As a pendant to this work appeared "The National Portrait Gallery," in two volumes, edited by Lionel Cust.
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