18 FEBRUARY 1871, Page 22

The Birth and Childhood of Our Lord: Meditations. Illustrated with

twelve photographs. (Seeleys.)—This volume—we know not by whose fault—seems to have strayed from its proper company of Christmas, books. It is not inappropriate, however, to any season, and we are not sorry to give it, and to recommend our readers to give it, the attention which the crowd of candidates for favour which besets us in December does not always admit of. The " Meditations " are chosen from Augus- tine, Chrysostom, and others, among whom Calvin, Matthew Henry, Simeon may be named, if only to show that the selection has been made with due regard to comprehensiveness. But the photographs deserve more than a passing word of praise. Without an exception they are re- markably good, and in some of them the excellence is such (as to be quite uncommon. "The Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth," after Martino- Albertinelli, "The Shepherds Rejoicing in the Star" after Portaels, "A Holy Family " after Rafaelle, may be mentioned, not so much perhaps because they manifestly surpass the other, but because they happen to possess some special charm for the writer.