PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Tinsel and Gold; or What Girls should Learn. A Tale. By Mrs. Veitch.—The authoress of this tale does not address it so much to girls as to their parents and guardians. It is very sensible and well written.

The opening sentence of her preface is quite cheering as a reactionary

word in the cause of good taste and good sense which we lmow on high authority are inherent in "the fitness of things "—so heartily despised by half our English world in the present day. Mrs. Veiteh says—" I suppose almost every one will admit that it is somewhat absurd to bring up the daughters of men of decidedly small, or even of moderate income, excactly in the same way as the daughters of those, who by descent, have inherited, or by -success have realized fortune and independence." We are not quite so happy in our supposition on this matter, but we are very glad to see that Tinsel and Gold will be of use in helping many to see and admit that it is absurd, although at present the wives of men with moderate and small incomes struggle to give their daughters a spu- rious sort of fashionable education. They are not alive to the fact that second or tenth-rate teaching of accomplishments bears the same relation to first-rate teaching that a cotton velvet gown hears to a veritable Genoa velvet. But their common sense and right feeling should lead them to the conclusion that no girls but the daughters of the high-born and wealthy can do their "duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call them" without early training in household matters.

Shakspeare and the musical glasses" may come afterwards as amuse- ment, but to be ignorant of how to manage a small household, to direct servants, ay, !even on rare occasions, to cook a dinner and keep a house

clean is really as disgraceful to the daughter of a man with 500/. per annum, as it would have been 200 years ago to the daughter of one with 5000/. We are ready to maintain again against all opponents, on the score of degrading a girl's intellect by making her a housewife, that it requires quite as much intellect to cook a dinner well as it does to play

Strauis's waltzes indifferently, and a great deal more to rule a house well and happily for the inmates.

Ralph Seabrooke. By Alfred Elwes.—Mr. Elwes is favourably known to young persons as a writer who really does entertain while he instructs them. This latest of his productions is, we think, even better than his former works. Ralph Seabrooke is a lad of fifteen' the son of an Eng- Jish who has early in life a strong desire to be an artist. This 'Ipisire is nourished by a residence of eighteen months in Italy, to which golden land the Seabrookes journey in search of health for the pater- familias Instead of dying on the journey in the orthodox fashion, Mr. Seabrooke recovers, and on his return. to England, succeeds to a large es- tate through the death of his brother and his nephew, both persons of strong constitution, who die suddenly. By this accession of fortune, it is clear to the reader that Ralph is not destined to work hard as a painter. This, however, only. comes out at the end of the book. All the way through it, Ralph is delightfully enthusiastic, and anxious to labour in his vocation. Not, though, to the exclusion of other engagements, lathe shape of adventures by the way, new acquaintances and friends made in Piedmont and Tuscany. A real love of Italy, her cities, mountains, and her blue Mediterranean is always active in the author—who writes at Florence, as we see from the preface—and, indeed as we might see from -the book itself. The descriptions of places and people are so fresh and life-like, they are made visible to the reader in a manner not to be ap- proached by one who writes from memory or imagination merely. To English girls and boys who have been or who arc going to Italy, Ralph Seabrooke will be a valuable present; and to those who stay at home, it will be the means of familiarizing the mind to the most striking and in- teresting things to be seen in Italy. Now, more than ever, will the hearts of free young England be drawn towards the land of art which is beginning again to be a land of liberty.

_Little Lily's Travels.—This is a pleasant book by the author of Little Lily's Picture-Book, and meant for the Lilies who have grown a year or so older. The travels are from Marseilles to Switzerland, through Avignon. Such a journey gives rise to a fair amount of description of customs and manners as well as of places; and the whole is made natural by an easy mode of telling, which, however, reads very much like a translation from the French. English people seldom talk so freely with little children in their own style. The shortness and clearness of each sentence make the book a capital reading lesson for young children. The subject is sure to charm them as they can understand all that is written.

Pride and his Prisoners. By A. L. 0. E.—A story of great pretension of infinitely little worth. It is half moral allegory, half modern religious novel, and wholly bad in conception and execution. One only thing is in its favour; the write: meant it to be a good and useful moral book. But, unfortunately, there is a great gulf in many minds between the wish to do something better than others, and the power. Now we can- not avoid coming to the conclusion that the author of Pride and his Pri- soners cannot write a good story. There is a hopeless perversity and an equally hopeless insensibility to the absurd in this little volume, which seems to warrant our opinion, that book-writing is not the proper busi- ness in life of this lady. The fatal facility of writing "words, words, words," must be rigidly separated from the gift of eloquence and literary invention.

A Manual of Illutnination. By J. W. Bradley and T. G. Goodwin.— This book, though not purely technical, is still sufficiently so to make its value known to few but artists and decorative artificers. The outline illustrations in it are beautifully executed—its fifth edition proclaims the fact that it is well known to its proper public.

A compact and very handsome edition of Captain COoke Voyages of _Discovery has been published in one volume by Messrs. Black. Mr. Barrow, the editor, has been enabled to incorporate with it many in- teresting letters not hitherto published.

• The Asian Mystery is an elaborate and authoritative treatise on the his- tory, religion, and present state of the Ansaireeh, a mountain tribe of Syria, whose tenets and rites, like those of the Druses, have long excited and baffled the curiosity of the learned. The author, who died in April last, was the only European who had ever lived among them on their mountains, and there he resided as a Christian missionary during the last seven years of his life. Besides the abundant opportunities he enjoyed of obtaining information orally, he became possessed of a unique copy of an Ansairee book, in which all the main points of the Ansairee sys-

tem, theological and ceremonial, are developed. This remarkable book demands a more extended notice. We shall return to it soon.

Booxs.

The Poetical Works of Gerald Massey. A new edition, with Illustrations. Turkish Life and Character. By Walter Thornbury, Author of "Life in Spain." Two volumes.

Infant Feeding and its Influence on Life ; or, the Causes and Prevention of Infant Mortality. By C. H. F. Routh, M.D.

A School Manual of Letter-Writing : containing numerous Models of Letters on Commercial and other Subjects, By the Reverend John Hunter, M.A. Hey to Hunter's Introduction to the Writing of Freels or Digests giving the Required Abridgments of ail the Exercises in that Treatise. By the Rever- end John Hunter, M.A.

Advanced Beading-Book, Literary and Scientific. Second edition.

Elementary Geography. By James Clyde, LL.D., Author of" School Geogra- phy," &c. Second edition.

School Geography. By James Clyde, LL.D., Author of "Greek Syntax," 8re, Second edition.

The Philosophy of Progress in Human Affairs. By Henry James Slack, F.G.S., Barrister-at-law.

Popular Manual of Botany : being a Development of the Rudiments of the Bo- tanical Science without Technical Terms. By Christopher Dresser, Ph.D., F.E.B.S. The Illustrations by John S. Cuthbert.

An Essay on the Origin of Languages. Based on Modern Researches, and especially on Works of M. Renan. By Frederick W. Farrar, M.A.

Hope Evermore; or, Something to Do. By the Author of " Left to Them- selves." In two volumes.

Constable's Educational Series. The First English Reading-Book, Parts 1, 2, and 3. The Second English Reading-Book. The Third English Reading- Book. The Fourth English Reading-Book. The Fifth English Reading- Book ; and, The Sixth English Reading-Book.

Music.

School Songs far Junior Classes. By T. M. Hunter, Director to the Associa- tion for the Revival of Sacred Music in Scotland.