19 DECEMBER 1868, Page 21

Pictures from Nature. By Mary Hewitt. (Routledge.)—The writer discourses very

pleasantly, as indeed we should expect her to do, on the sights and sounds of the various months. This part of the book is as good as it can be ; Mary Howitt has, from of old, a power which can really make pictures. But for the pictures, properly so called, we can- not say much. It is in vain that we are told in the title-page that they are "beautifully printed in colours." They please neither in colouring nor in design. Let any one look at the picture of threshing (October), with the wheat of exactly the same hue (a very deep orange) with the barn roof. And how can a picture of the Mansion House in a shower be called "A Picture from Nature "?