12 DECEMBER 1863, Page 22

Peter Parley's Annual. (W. Kent and (Jo.)—There is little need

of noticing a publication so widely known as this. Its specialty at present seems to be history, but there is the usual melange of stories for children, and older people—some of them, such as the "Scapegrace," written in a style too closely resembling that of the sensation novel, "instructive" essays, coloured engravings, and woodcuts, some of them very fairly executed, the best being, perhaps, a portrait of Shakespeare. The mass of the stories are of the average kind, quite unobjectionable reading for children, but there is an objection to one headed, "Pig Sticking, and other Eastern Sports." The " point " of that paper is a combat between a lion and a tiger, which is terrifically pourtrayed in the accompanying illustration. It is very true to nature, we dare say, only as the lion does not exist in India, the scene selected involves a mis- take of some importance.