Queer Discourses on Queer Proverbs. By Old Merry. (Hodder and
Stoughton.)—This little book is sufficiently sensible, and not unamnsing.
"Old Merry" is a kindly person, who preaches sermons, which his audience, having always in their hands the remedyof shutting up the book, may listen to with pleasure, and which are at all events free from cant. They are scarcely improved by the illustrations, one of which, " The Sore Toe," seems a strange misreading of the text. "Old Merry" also puts together the year's numbers of the magazine which goes by his
name, and follows the usual fashion in calling it " Old Merry's Annual."
Peter Parley's Annual, on the other hand, is properly so called. We had a notion that "Peter Parley" was dead. That circumstance, how-
ever, does not, it would seem, prevent him from putting together a very readable book for boys and girls. We have a vivid recollection of certain books bearing the name (in yellow covers, we think) that were dear to our childhood. We are unhappily not so capable of criticizing them as we were more than a quarter of a century ago, but to such powers as are loft us this book commends itself.
We have before us a new edition of the Gills' Own Book, by L. N. Child, without any publisher's name. It has been enlarged and reno- vated, and contains the latest inventions down to croquet. We think that, girls' book as it is, it ought to have more about games that are also exercise. Apart from this consideration, it seems complete.
Previous page
