Child's Play. By "E. V. B." (Sampson Low.)—A very jolly
little picture book, with coloured engravings of a much more delicate and fanciful order than we are accustomed to see. "Little Boy Blue blow- ing his Horn, with the Sheep in the Meadow and the Cow in the Corn," Is a most charming little chap, with chubby legs and bare feet, in a" little blue coatee. Indeed the children are generally rather strong in the legs. The bare-legged little ones among the bluebells addressing the ladybirds, and telling them to fly away home, are, again, bonny little innocent babies. Wee Willie Winkle in his nightgown has got his hair a little too carefully brushed for so very decided an undress. But look at that moat effective picture on the rather vague text,—
" Draw a pail of water For my lady's daughter ; Father's a King, Mother's a Queen; My two little sisters are dressed in Veen, Stamping marigolds and parsley."
The young lady who is chores or spokeswoman is conversing with her mother, the Queen) beside the well, with a pail at her feet. Then, at the top of a long row of steps, the two little sisters dressed in green, one with _ her arms crossed, the other with her hands uplifted, with a pretty little peep of landscape beyond, are stamping the marigolds and parsley. The artist has embellished her composition with a little boy in the compart- ment on the left, who is teaching a moose to sit up on its hind legs, and' two little boys in the compartment on the right, sunk deep in the grass, who are acting audience. Mr. Ruskin should explain the boy teaching the mouse to sit up. Is he meant to be a moral counterfoil to the little girls in green who are trampling on vegetable life,—as trying to lift a despised form of animal life out of the dust? Any way, this is a very jolly little children's book.
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