TIIACKEEAT'S CHRISTMAS-BOOK, THE ROSE AND THE BING. * Mn. THACKERAY calls

his Christmas-book " a fireside pantomime for great and small children"; and tells us that it arose from a set of Twelfth-Night characters which he was requested to draw for some young folks at Rome last winter, and about which the history now presented to the public under the title of " The Ring and the Rose" was composed. The book answers perfectly to its description and its professed origin, whether that be an author's ordinary trick of assumption or a genuine account of the matter. For it is a book of broad fun—not witty, sentimental, humorous, or allegorical, but simply funny; a book that, in its essentials, a good-humoured, clever, and inventive boy might have written for the amusement of his young brothers and sisters. Here and there, but very sparingly, sly strokes of satire remind us that we are listening to the historian of Vanity Fair; and somewhat oftener the matter • The Bose and the fling; or the Bistory of Prince Giglio and Prince Bulbo. A Fireside Pantomime for Great and Small Children. By Mr. M. A. Tinnarsh, Author of "The Eiciileburys on the Rhine," 8m. Published by Smith and Elder. verges on the literary burlesque,—as where the King and great personages occasionally break out into blank verse—printed like prose—in which the commonplace is heightened into the ludi- crous by the contrast between the homely sentiment and the pompous strut of the phraseology and measure—an effect that is enhanced by the affectation of an archaic language, so common and so laughable in our would-be Elizabethan dramatists. Even this, however, is a trick that a clever boy, used to theatres, would easily catch ; and with this exception the tone is altogether boyish, and broad enough to amuse children heartily. The agency is that of the good Fairy "Blackstick"; who brings her favourites through• their manifold persecutions and troubles, to the end the reader will learn from the book. But the story widely distinguishes. itself from Planche's fairy extravaganzas, or Ruskin's charming fairy tale, in wanting the gorgeous elegance of the former, and the grace, beauty, and meaning of the latter. Perhaps Thacke-. ray has most intellectual qualities in a higher degree than fancy ; and his moral is too stern, earnest, and profound, to blend. easily with the grotesques of the pantomimic universe. His book will consequently disappoint those who expect to find in it senti- ment or philosophy in a comic mask. The wisdom that breathes from its pages is simply the wisdom that sounds in a hearty laugh; and those who are not too proud, too hard, too unhappy, or too stupid, to enjoy a hearty laugh, will not think that one of England's greatest writers of fiction has wasted his talents in amusing "great and small children." We would certainly rather be one of a pleasant fireside party—grandmammas, papas and mammas, brothers, sisters, and cousins, old, middle-aged, and young —to sit listening to this book, and joining in the roars of the chil- dren and the half-suppressed chuckle of the elders, than go and sit a Christmas night out in a box at the theatre, and see the best pantomime that these degenerate days are ever likely again to wit- ness. Here is the first appearance of the heroine upon the stage. " One day, when the Princess Angelica was quite a little girl, she was. walking iu the garden of the palace, with Mrs. Gruffanuff, the governess, holding a parasol over her head, to keep her sweet complexion from the freckles, and Angelica was carrying a bun, to feed the swans and ducks in the royal pond.

" They had not reached the duck-pond, when there came toddling up to them such a funny little girl! She had a great quantity of hair blowing about her chubby little cheeks, and looked as if she had not been washed or combed for ever so long. She wore a ragged bit of a cloak, and had only one shoe on.

"'You little wretch who let you in here ? ' asked Gruffanuff.

"'Dive me dat bun,' said the little girl ; ' me vely hungy.'

" ' Hungry!! what is that?' asked Princess Angelic; and gave the child the bun.

" Oh Princess !' says Gruffanuff, how good, how kind, how truly angelical you are! See, your Majesties,' she said to the King and Queen, who now came up, along with their nephew, Prince Giglio, 'how kind the Princess is! She met this little dirty wretch in the garden—I can't tell how she came in here, or why the guards did not shoot her dead at the gate! and the dear darling of a Princess has given her the whole of her bun!'

" I didn't want it,' said Angelica.

" ' But you are a darling little angel all the same,' says the governess. "'Yes, I know I am,' said Angelica. Dirty little girl, don't you think I am very pretty ?' Indeed, she had on the finest of little dresses and hats ; and, as her hair was carefully curled, she really looked very well.

"' 06, pooty, pooty !' says the little girl, capering about, laughing, and dancing, and munching her bun ; and as she ate it she began to sing, ' Oh what fun to have a plum bun ! how I wis it never was done! ' At which, and her funny accent, Angelica, Giglio, and the King and Queen, began to laugh very merrily. " "I can dance as well as sing,' says the little girl. can dance, and I can sing, and I can do all sorts of ling.' And she ran to a flower-bed, and, pulling is few polyanthuses, rhododendrons, and other flowers, made herself a little wreath, and danced before the King and Queen so drolly and prettily, that everybody was delighted.

" Who was your mother—who were your relations, little girl ?' said the Queen.

" The little girl said, Little lion was my brudder; great big lioness my niudder ; weber heard of any udder.' And she capered away on her one shoe, and everybody was exceedingly diverted. "So Angelica said to the Queen, • Mamma, my parrot flew away yesterday out of its cage, and I don't care any more for any of my toys ; and I think this funny little dirty child will amuse me. I will take her home, and give her some of my old frocks.'

" Oh, the generous darling!' says Gruffanuff.

"' Which I have worn ever so many times, and am quite tired of,' An- gelica went on ; and she shall be my little maid. Will you come home with me, little dirty girl ? ' "The child clapped her hands, and said, ' Go home with you—yes! Tou pooty Princess ! Have a nice dinner, and wear a new dress!' "And they all laughed again, and took home the child to the palace, where, when she was washed and combed, and had one of the Princess's frocks given to her, she looked as handsome as Angelica, almost. Not that Ange- lica ever thought so ; for this little lady never imagined that anybody in the world could be as pretty, as good, or as clever as herself. In order that the little girl should not become too proud and conceited, Mrs. Gruffanuff took her old ragged mantle and one shoe, and put them into a glass box, with a card laid upon them, upon which was written, 'These were the old clothes in which little Betsinda was found when the great goodness and admirable kindness of her Royal Highness the Princess Angelica received this little outcast.' And the date was added, and the box locked up."

Our only other extract shall be the fate of Jenkins Gruffanuff, a warning to all flunkies. " When the Princess Angelica was born, her parents not only did not ask the Fairy Blackstick to the christening party, but gave orders to their porter, absolutely to refuse her if she called. This porter's name was (irutfauutl; and he had been selected for the post by their Royal Highnesses because he was a very tall fierce man, who could say Not at home ' to a tradesman or an un- welcome visitor with a rudeness which frightened most such persona away. He was the husband of that Countess whose picture we have gust seen, and as long as they were together they quarrelled from morning till night. Now this fellow tried his rudeness once too often, as you shall hear. For the Fairy Blackstick coming to call upon the Prince end Princess, who were actually sitting at the open drawingroom window, Gruffanuff not only denied them, but made the most odious vulgar sign as he was going to slam the door in the

Fern's face. Get away, hold Blackstick I' said he, I tell you, Master

and Missis ain't at home to you '; and he was, as we have said, going to slam the door.

" But the Fairy, with her wand, prevented the door being shut ; and Gruffauuff came out again in a fury, swearing in the most abominable way, and asking the Fairy, ' whether she thought he was a going to stay at that there door hall day ?'

" You are going to stay at that door all day and all night, and for many a long year,' the Fairy said, very majestically : and Gruffanuff, coming out of the door, straddling before it with his great calves, burst out laughing, and cried 'Ha, ha, ha! this is a good un ! Ha—ah—what's this ? Let me down —0—o—H' ra!' and then he was dumb.

" For, as the fairy waved her wand over him, he felt himself rising off the ground, and fluttering up against the door, and then, as if a screw ran into his stomach, he felt a dreadful pain there, and was pinned to the door ; and then his arms flew up over his head ; and his legs, after writhing about wildly, twisted under his body ; and he felt cold, cold, growing over him, as if he was turning into metal ; and be said, 0—o—II'm !' and could say no more, because he was dumb.

"Ile was turned into metal! He was from being brazen, brass ! He was neither more nor less than a knocker ! And there he was, nailed to the door in the blazing summer-day, till he burned almost red hot ; and there lie was, nailed to the door all the bitter winter nights, till his brass nose was dropping with icicles. And the postman came and rapped at him, and the vulgarest boy with a letter came and hit him up against the door. And the King and Queen, (Princess and Prince they were then,) coming home from a walk that evening, the King said, my dear! you have had a new knocker put on the door. Why, it's rather like our Porter in the face ! What has become of that boozy vagabond ? ' And the housemaid came and scrubbed his nose with sand-paper ; and once, when the Princess Angelica's little sister was born, he was tied up in an old kid glove ; and another night some larking young men tried to wrench him off, and put him to the most excruciat- ing agony with a turn-screw. And then the Queen had a fancy to have the colour of the door altered, and the painters dabbed him over the mouth and eyes, and nearly choked him, as they painted him pea-green. I warrant he had leisure to repent of having been rude to the Fairy Blackstick !

"As for his wife, she did not miss him ; and as he was always guzzling beer at the public-house, and notoriously quarrelling with his wife, and in debt to the tradesmen, it was supposed he had run away from all these evils, and emigrated to Australia or America. And when the Prince and Princess chose to become King and Queen, they left their old house, and nobody thought of the Porter any more."

The pictures, by the author, are very numerous ; and they will add greatly to the amusement of the small children. They are broad of course, and of course the faces are old friends ; but we had many a good laugh over them, and they have the first-rate excellence of being unmistakeably stamped with meaning and character.