23 DECEMBER 1871, Page 28

CHRISTMAS Booxs.—English Artists of the Present Day (Soeloys) is the

continuation, with a somewhat wider scope and more comprehensive title, of a volume—English Painters of the Present Day—which wo noticed last year as one of the best books of the season. The plan of the book is, as before, to give critical essays on the style and work of some of our chief artiste, each of those being illustrated by a photograph. The essays are contributed by well-known writers on art, Messrs. W. B. Atkinson, Sidney Colvin, F. G. Stephens, Tom Taylor, and John L. Tupper. The photographs are "Woodbury typos" and "autotypes," and are in most cases taken from tho original pictures. Whore everything is of excellent quality, it is difficult to single out anything for special praise. One of the most fascinating reproductions is Mr. C. Cave Thomas's " Angels regarding Mon." The conception of this work is very fine, the attitudes of the figures dignified, and the sense of space in the heavenly region whore the angels stand given with much power. " In Memoriam," after a work of Mr. Woolner's ; "Brimming Holland," after Mr. J. 0. Hook ; "The Finding of Christ in the Temple," from an interesting study by Mr. W. Holman Hunt for his groat picture ; and a fine bit of landscape, "Wind on the Wold," by Mr. G. Mason, are other noticeable illus- trations.—lionedy Scenes from areal Painters. By Godfrey Words- worth Turner. (Cassell and Co.)—Here we have twenty-four photo- graphs, taken by the "Woodbury process," of well-known pictures, the principle of selection being a certain " homeliness " in tho subjects repre- sented. The artists are of the English, French, German, and Flemish schools, most of them being modern names. Photographs, as we have already said, it is now almost superfluous to praise. " Tho Labour of Love," a picture of a Scotch lassie and her little brother, after Mr. Dick- see, and "The Little Ducks," after Dioffonbaoh, strike us as being par- ticularly good. Mr. Turner supplies accompanying essays or rather gos- sips which commonly start with art-criticism, and wander off into all con- ceivable topics. He gives us, for instance, apropos of apicturo of a child on a toy horse by M. Dubasty, called "The Cavalry Charge," a detailed account of the day of Balaklava. What he writes is, however, sufficiently readable, though not without some specimens of questionable taste. This is the way in which he begins the two pages of letter-press which accompany an illustration after Mr. Sant, called " Prayer." " In this picture of lordly piety—Mr. Sant's infant models were two children of the Duke of Argyll—thorn is a fooling as simple as might throw a hallowed light on any a homely scone' where infants have been taught to pray." What sort of piety is it, we wonder, when the children of com- moners pray Wensleydale : Fourteen Etchings, with Descriptive Text. By Richard S. Chattock. (Saeloys.)—We are glad to see that photographs aro not entirely thrusting out "art" in illustrated books. The etchings are excellent—"Hardraw Force," " Aye- garth Force," and "Aysgarth Bridge " may be mentioned as among the best—and the whole book is a delightful recollection or recommendation, as tbo case may be, of one of the most beauti- ful bits of scenery in England. —The Mighty Works of our Lord Jesus Christ (Seeley) is a selection of meditations from divines of various times, among whom may be mentioned Augustine, Ohrysostom, Calvin, and Bishop Andrews, illustrated with twelve photographs after Raffaelle, Paul Veronese, Rembrandt, Ary Schaffer, 0 vorboek, and others. The choice both of the " divinity " and of the " art " has been well managed, and the volume makes a very elegant "gift book.".-- Time 1?oyal Illuminated Book of Legends, by Marcus Ward (Nimmo), is splendid with gold and colour. It contains three legends, " Cinderella " and "Tho Fayre One with the Golden Locks," whore Mr. Francis Davis, of whose poetical gift we cannot speak very highly, contributor the verso, and "The Sleeping Beauty," for which permission has been obtained to make use of Mr. Tonnyson's poem. Tho drawings, besides the undeniable recommendation of their gorgeous colour, are spirited in their quaintness. Each ballad, wo should say, is furnished with the air to which it may be sung.—Among the books more especially intended for the little folks are Routledge's Coloured A 13 C Book. (Rontledge.)—The idea of it is to give various alphabets. There is " The Alphabet of Fairy Tales," after this style :— " A is Aladdin, the poor widow's son, With his wonderful lamp a fair princess ho won," —the opposite page giving the various subjects grouped together. Then comes " The Farmyard Alphabet," with its birds, boasts, ttc. ; " The Alphabet of Flowers ;" and "Tom Thumb's Alphabet." The Mae- trations are printed in oils, and are always rich in colouring. The drawing varies considerably. For the " Farmyard " and the " Flowers " wo cannot say much, the latter especially being very stiff. "Tom Thumb," with its comic pictures of the familiar adventures, is per- haps the best.—Little Folks : a Magazine .for the Young, vol. ii. (Cassell and Co.) ; The Children's Prize, edited by the Rev. E. Erskine Clarke (W. Wells Gardner), aro both good of their kind, the pic- torial element predominating in the former, the literary in the latter.— Jack Hazel and his Fortunes, by J. T. Trowbridge (Sampson Low and Co.), is a story from the other side of the Atlantic. " Jack " is a boy on board a barge which works on the Erie Canal, and has the habits of his kind, for it would seem that inland navigators are the same hard-handed and rough-tongued race in the New World as they are in the Old. "Jack" is thrown by his master into the canal, and thinks it high time to change his profession, So, accompanied by a certain Lion, most faithful of dogs, ho sots out on his travels, Booking a place whore he may earn his livelihood in honest fashion. Fortune brings him first across some charcoal-burners ; then across a certain "deacon," whose kindly humorous nature, with its queer fits of "absence," is very well drawn ; and then he contrives, with the help of a certain schoolmistress, to "make out," in spite of an almost irresistible tendency to cause an earthquake in the quiet family by the terrible language which long habit keeps on the tip of his tongue. There is a whole gallery of capital little portrait-sketches in the book, the only weak thing in it being the incipient passion which Jack begins to fool for the schoolmistress, a young lady who bas a habit, which would be dangerous in any but a decidedly pious person, of darting very killing glances over her shouldor.—Real Folks, by Mre. A. D. T. Whitney (Sampson and Low), is another Trans-Atlantic tale. Mre. Whitney is the author of a well- known and deservedly favourite tale, "Faith Gartney's Girlhood," and this book will maintain her reputation. It is the story of two girls, echo are separated early in life to follow very different paths ; ono to be brought up by a fashionable aunt in New York, the other to be an inmato of a New-England farm-house, and who grow up accordingly, Perhaps the beet thing in the book ie "Desire," a young girl, who may be called "the Ugly Duckling" of the fashionable family, a creature in whom nature vindicates herself gainst the conventionalities of her surroundings. The book is written in what we may call haraderistic "American," highly idiomatic, elliptical, and even ob- scure. But it is full of good things. Here are one or two. She was in conscious rapport with every thing and stitch she had about her. Some persons only put clothes on their bodies ; others really seem to contrive to put them on to their souls." "There is a leaven of grace in mother-care,' even though it be expended on these," i.e., children's "'suits "and party-dresses and picnic hats, &o. And here is one of Desire's utterances. Some one has said to her that " religion at least is real."

They have mixed that all up, too, like everything else, so that you don't know where it is. Glossy Megilp has a velvet prayer-book, and she blacks her eyelashes and goes to church. We've all been baptized, and we've learned the Lord's Prayer, and we're all Christians. What is there more about it? I wish sometimes they had let it all alone. I think they vaccinated us with religion, for fear we should take it in the natural way."—Boy Life among the Indians, by the Rev. F. B. Goulding (Routledge), takes us to a very different scone on the same continent. We are now in Georgia, among the semi-civilized Indians, Creeks and Cherokees. It is with a chief of the latter tribe that the party spend a summer in hunting, shooting, and the like. The book, we may say, has every look of being a real narrative of events. There is no exaggeration or conventionalism about it, and the result is about as pleasant a story as we have seen for some time. One of the most interesting chapters is that which describes the labours of See-quo-gah, a Cherokee, in inventing for his language a written character. He was able to represent all the sounds of the language, which is, of course, syllabic, by eighty-four symbols. A Cherokee child can learn to read, fortunate creature! in a few hours; but then if he wishes to read, not understand, lot it be noticed, any other language, ho has all the ordinary labour to undergo.— Among the Huts in Egypt, by Mr. L. Whately (Seeley), is a simple record of experience, chiefly of the missionary kind, by a lady who has already given the public more than one excellent book about Eastern life. The accounts of life among the poor, especially of the women's share of it, though tinged with the peculiarities of a of a certain religious school, are excellent, and the occasional glimpses of natural scenery, the description, for instance, of the second spring which follows the inundation of the Nilo, are remarkably pleasing, Doll World; or, Play and Earnest, by Mrs. Robert O'Reilly (Boll and Delay), is a pretty little volume not much bigger than the palm of one's band, which one could easily wish to be ton times as long, upon a capital subject, and makes good use of it. Lady Silverreed, otherwise _Birdie Somers, and Lady Rushwator, otherwise Florence Murray, with their largo and troublesome doll-families, are delightful little people, 'whether we find them at "play " or in " earnest," though which is the naoro "earnest," dolls or lessons, it would not be easy to say. The serious- ness of the first chapter, in which we are introduced to the two young families is admirable. Take this bit of dialogue:--"' Is Augusta ill?' :added the visitor suddenly, 'nothing catching, I hope ?' and the anxious

parent glanced at her own child with rather an alarmed look. no! only something the matter with her chest. I'm putting on a blister.'

What's it made of ? 'Brown paper and " Lady Silverreed sunk her voice, for the nursery was in dangerous proximity to Merwyn Hall, and nurse had sharp oars, " an I butter, saved from breakfast. It sticks beautifully,"--Old Saws New Set. By Mrs. H. Mackarnese. (Routledge.)—This is a collection of tales by the author of "A. Trap to Calash°, Sunbetun,"some of them full of sunbeams, and others of something .quite different. Cheery little tales like that of " The Artist's Holiday " are always welcome. Doleful ones we will not praise. At Christmas time wo are determined to be optimists,—Round the World, edited by Samuel Smiles (John Murray), is a true story. The, author of the book is Mr, Smiles' youngest son, who was ordered abroad for his health, and wont to Australia and New Zealand, and homewards by Honolulu, San Trancisoo, and across the continent to Now York, The volume before us is made up of his letters and diary, and does great credit to his Towers of seeing and of describing what ho saw. Mr. Smiles, jun., bad not many adventures, but a man who goes round the world keeping his eyes open, and having the use of his fingers, must have much to tell to stay- ;at-home folks, In one point we notioo that his experience differs from that of previous travellers. Ho found his letters of introduction very useful, not mere "tickets for soup," as they are commonly called. But then it must be remembered that he wanted nothing. We should imagine that a colonial merchant would be boundless in his hospitality to a young Englishman who didn't want a clerk's place. We should like to know whether it is true that officers on board ships carrying the mails "open the mail-bag and take out what they like." If so, do they also put their hands on letters? What is the difference? Newspapers, as Mr. Smiles suggests, especially among the poor, often are letters. We remember to have hoard descriptions of dull mornings at sea being wiled away by laughter over emigrants' letters. Is there not a comic book called " The Emigrants' Mail-Bag," which must be based on the practice Travelling About, by Lady Barker (Macmillan), is a very well-compiled volume of recent travel and discovery. Most editors, says Lady Barker, "seem to have begun with Marco Polo and to leave off with Mango Park." Her subjects are travels of the last forty years, The two first chapters, with the narrative of the Australian exploration of Wills and Burke, make a capital opening for the book, which, introducing us to Livingstone, Richard Burton, Spoke and Grant, Rajah Brooke, and a host of others, sustains its interest throughout. —The Children's Picture-Book of Animal Sagacity (Routledge), explains its subject. It consists of a number of stories about clever animals, whose portraits are drawn by the skilful pencil of Mr. Harrison Weir.—Ike Child's Bible Narrative (Cassell and Co.), is a consecutive arrangement of the narrative portions of the Bible, in which the authorized version is followed, with an occasional alteration for the sake of greater clearness, The only objectionable thing in the book is the frontispiece, "The Dove sent forth from the Ark," when the Ark is resting on the top of Ararat on a spot strewed with oorpses.—In the Children's Bible History, by Ii. W. Duloken (Routledge), the Bible narratives are put into easy words.—The Household Robinson Crusoe (Nelson), is a reprint of the original edition, to which Mr. W. H. D. Adams has prefixed a life of Defoe and some literary criticism of his work. It is illustrated through- out with some spirited wood engravings.---.Naomi; or, the Last Days of Jerusalem, by Mr. J. T. Webb (Routledgo), a well-known tale, appears in a very handsome edition, the seventeenth, illustrated by some beauti- ful photographs of scenery in the Holy Land, after David Roberts.---- Our readers already know what we think of Aunt Judy's Magazine, so that we need not do more than mention the appearance of the Christmas 'Volume (Bell and Daldy). —,We have also to notice Peter Parley's Annual (Ben. George), which is, we believe, and doubtless not undeservedly, a favourite with the boy audience which it addresses. " Peter Parley," we observe, hopes in his preface that "he may be spared many years to come." Surely this hope is unnecessary. Whether he is spared or no, ho can go on writing. " Peter Parley " we believe, died many years ago, but here he is alive, if writing prefaces is a sign of life. —The Poll-Parrot Picture-Book. (Routlodge and Co., London.) Illus- trated by Kronhoina. This is a book that will delight young children of an age to appreciate simple stories illustrated by simple pictures. Fore- most amongst them is the popular and well-known tale of Roynard the Fox," whose adventures terminate, not in disgrace and the gallows, as in Felix Summerly's special adaptation for children, but in honour and the woolsack, as in the original. The pictures throughout the book aro rich in colouring and well executed ; the grouping too is carefully attended to, especially in the " Cats' Tea Party," which is the best picture and which bears a clever resemblance to a human tea party. The story in verse of " Anne and her Mother " is, wo suppose, inserted for the sake of its moral, but it had been bettor omitted, for the lines are weak and silly, and the pictures have no point ; we think even the children will be critical enough to find it out of place, and will hurry through it back to the animal stories, and these wo can certainly recommend for their amusement.