4 DECEMBER 1886, Page 21

SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL CHRISTMAS BOOKS.—III.* THE friendly and intelligent

foreigner who observes our habits, our dwellings, and our country generally, is always welcome, especially so when he is interpreted to us by a translator who knows how to render his remarks into idiomatic English, without taking from them all their foreign flavour, and by competent illustrations. It is with these advantages that Mons. P. Fillers comes before us. Of course even this stout volume of 650 pages (it really consists of three volumes bound in one) will not suffice for an adequate description of a country where Nature has much to show, and Art a great deal more. Still, the writer has done what he could, and to London, at least, has given a fairly adequate treatment. Comparatively few of our visitors, not being from the States, go beyond London ; if they do, they will find that M. Pillars has still a good deal to show them. The illustrations are almost uniformly pretty ; some are really fine specimens both of drawing and engraving. As for the information, it seems to have been collected with care and intelligence, while the comments are conceived in a candid spirit. Errors there are, of course. Oxford does not boast—it might be wished that it did—ten thousand undergraduates. M. Vinare has probably taken the whole number of names on the books. How he comes to say that "the least that a student must spend is 2300 a year," we cannot guess. 2200 might be a fair average, though probably a majority of students spend less.

Mr. Fenn goes somewhat nearer to farce than is worthy of so skilful a hand, in one at least of the characters of Pusan( the Guide. " Barna the Lawyer," with his trumpet-like blowiugs of the nose that clause a stampede among the animals of the cavalcade, and his general cantankerousness and difficulty of temper, is a caricature reminding us in a way of the characteristio Englishman of a French story. Beyond this we have no fault to find with his tale. It tells us how "Lawrence the Sick," a lad who seems likely to go into consumption, is taken abroad for his health by his two guardians, the Professor and the Doctor, how they engage a certain guide, Yussuf by name, and how they encounter and surmount various dangers by land and see. The adventure in the Greek fishing-boat and the scenes with the brigands are particularly good.

The same writer gives us, we think, mach better work in his other book of the season. We do not know, indeed, that he has over reached a higher level in this kind of fiction than he has in Devon Boys. The " boys " are three in number,—" Sop" Duncan, who tells the story ; "Bob," at fall length Robert Champernowne, son of the local doctor ; and Biggley Ingleston, whose father is a fisherman more than suspected of smuggling. The time is supposed to be somewhere about the middle of the last century. The story springs out of the purchase by " Sap's " father of a certain opening in the cliff, called " SlatA3y Gap," and the discovery, thanks to an arrant piece of mischief on the part of the boys, of some valuable veins of metal. Here the practical knowledge and power of realising things which are among Mr. Fenn's best gifts as a writer, come in. The mining experiences are told most effectively. Incidents of other kinds, of course, abound. The boys have a way of getting into and getting out of the most alarming scrapes. One of these scrapes, when Biggley, a good-natured, easy-going fellow, who, however, can come out on occasion, gets fastened in a cleft of the rooks, and is in imminent danger of being drowned, is thrilling in the highest degree. Then there is an exciting smuggling adventure, and the scene where the Frenchmen attack the counting-house of the mine is admirable. Altogether, this must be put in the very front ranks of Christmas books.

Mr. Farjeon's Golden Bush is a story of the simplest kind. A struggling clerk goes out with his family to Australia at the invitation of a brother who has made his fortune there, and meets with a hearty welcome. How he and his children talk over their plans, how they fare on shipboard, how they journey to Golden Bush (the Australian brother's station), are told in a very pleasing way ; but, apart from the striking incident of the bush fire, the narrative is uneventful. The author, however, who knows his business as a story-teller, relieves what might appear monotonous by the ingenious introduction of a certain "Uncle David," an interesting personage, who has some curious experiences to relate. "The Convict Ship" and " Curley- headed Jack" are both excellent stories. The first, at least its central incident of the innocent convict and his betrothed, we have a vague impression of having seen before. Mr. Farjeon can evidently write for "boys and girls," as well as he can write for older readers.

• 1. England. Scotland, and Ireland. By Mons. P. Pillars. Illustrated. (Routledge and Eions.)-2. Yeses/ the Guide. By G. Manville Fenn. tIllaekie and Son.)-8. Devon Boys. Same Author and Publisbers.-4. The Golden Bush. By B. L. Farjeon. (1sbister and 0o.)-5. Ivan Wentworth. By Katharine Macquoid. (Hatobards.)--6. Down the Snow Stairs. By Alias Cothran. (Bleskie and Son)-7. Carol's Daughter. By Madame Colomb. (Rontledge and Bona )-5. Dinah Mite. By "Brenda." (Littlest and 00.1-9. An Unwelcome Guest. By Fame Stuart. (Griffith and Farran.)-10. Big Otter. By R. Y. Bellantyne. (Routledgeand Son.)-11. The Cruise of the ' Flyiug Fish.' By Harry Collingwood. (Blackie and Son.)-12. The Hermit's Apprentice. By Ascott R. Hope. (ilimmo, Hay, and Mitchell.)—l3. Granny's Boy. By Thomas Keyworth. (F. Warne and Co.)

Joan Wentworth would in any case be a readable book, for Mrs. Macquoid's literary power ensures so much; but it would hardly stand above many of the well-written volumes of a didactic kind which appear at this time, but for the picturesque scenes of Breton life which the anther introduces. Joan is a clever girl of that restless, sensitive, enthusiastic kind which, till brought into shape by the dis- cipline of life, is apt to be troublesome. She makes a friendship which does not turn out well, and rejects, at least for a time, another that 1/3 of real value ; she is keenly anxious to be helpful, bat finds it hard to perceive where her help will be most useful. But she is brave, and unselfish, and affectionate, and the reader comes to like her much before the end of the story. But the distinction of the book is to be found in the legends and in such scenes as the Breton fair, the night spent on the farm, the adventure on the Morbihan Sea, and others where the author draws on experiences of which she has already made good use. We must not forget, however, to say a word of praise about the fun which is made of Augusta Morris's attempt at authorship.

Little Kitty, the heroine of Miss Corkran's Down The Snow Stairs, sees a " wonderland ;" bat it is not like the famous country which a certain well-known Alice once visited—a land of most delightful nonsense—but a most serious and instruc- tive region. For she sees the places, circles, as it were, in another Purgatorio (palpably not an Inferno, for Love is ready to guide the poor sufferers out of it), where the children suffer the penalties of their misdeeds, and go through the discipline which is to sat them free. The wicked little child who kills the butterfly is haunted by its ghost ; the cruel boys who take the callow young out of the nest feel them flying about them. The untruthful wander in mazes of falsehood, the lazy find their fingers and toes grown together, the greedy are troubled with perpetual repletion, the vain can see nothing but their own faces. But, as we have said, the little misdoers are not forgotten by Love ; and the terror is all the more effective because there is a suggestion of hope beyond it. Miss Corkran has done a difficult task—for it is difficult to be didactic without being tedious—remarkably well.

Madame Colomb, in Carol's Daughter, tells her little story of the old wandering toy.seller, and the child whom he saved from the showmen who would have tortured her limbs and stunted her growth, with a happy combination of tenderness and vivacity. The growth of Pere Carol's nature when he finds that he has to care for another is skilfully described ; and the child herself is a charming creation. Madame Colomb knows her business too well to make the up-bringing of a little waif and stray a quite easy matter. "Mimi" has her faults jest like children who are not picked up on a door-step. Her struggles with these, and specially her repentance when, proud of her new dress, the first that she has ever had, she disowns her poor father in his shabby clothes, are admirably drawn. Altogether, this unpre- tending little volume has a right to rank high among the books of the season.

" Brenda's " power of pathetic description will be known, doubtless, to many of our readers. In Dinah Mite she is quite equal to herself. Little Dinah herself is a persona muta (except for an occasional cry) in the story; but she plays, nevertheless, an important part in it. It is she who works a reformation in the Mite household, rained, as so many households are, by "the drink." The author skilfully uses a genuine incident, a baby holding up its hand at a temperance meeting when the audience were invited to sign the pledge. Tom Mite's wife has been compelled to take refuge in the parish infirmary, her leg, already weakened by long standing at the wash-tub, being badly injured by a stool which he kicks at her in a drunken fit, and the baby which she had hoped to take in with her is refused admittance. Hence it comes into the father's charge ; the father takes it to a meeting which he is half deluded into attending, and at the meeting its vote determines his own conduct. The Mite family, its old misery, and its transformation when the fatal cause is removed, are excellently described ; but nothing is better than Bridget Mite's neighbour in the infirmary, old Mrs. Cherry, who, incurable, friend- less, and a pauper, is invincibly cheerful and happy. A more touching and instructive page has never been taken from the "annals of the poor."

Miss Estne Stuart has nothing more than an ordinary story to tell in her Unwelcome Guest; but she tells it well. The scene is laid in Cornwall, and though there are no elaborate attempts at description, the local colour is effectively kept up. Perhaps the minor characters are the most skilfully drawn ; they are certainly the most enter- taining. Mrs. Parks, the Englishwoman—Cornwall, it seems, is not in England—who lives to make Thomasine, the native housemaid, do her duty, and Thomasine herself, are always amusing. Here is the young woman's account of how she gave up her suitor, Mark Michell :—" I had given him my word this time last year; but soon after he came, you knaw, looking quite waik and poorly, and I says, What's the matter, Mark ?' Well, he wouldn't tell, Miss Jenifer, for some time ; but to mable my atoory shorts he said at last, She's come back ;' and I says, What do'st mean, Mark F' 'My wife,' says he. Well, Miss, I give a big start, and I says, Your wife, Mark—have 'e seen hum ?' I knew she was dead and buried safe, but there's many, Miss Jenifer, as do come back. Well, he says, Now, I ha'nt seed har." Why, how dost knaw P says I. She come o'night and flops my face,' says Mark ; and I says, 'So you knawed her flop, did 'e P and he says, Aye; it could not be mistook.' Well, Miss Jenifer, I knaw it war no good after that, and I just said to Mark, 'IF she do hunt thee, she'll hunt me, and if she do flop 'e, she'll flop me, so it must be off atween us.'"

Mr. Ballantyne has an inexhaustible store of adventures to relate for the amusement of the young, and their instraction,—an object which he most conscientiously remembers. This time he takes us to the Far North-West, to the Hudson's Bay Territory, and intro- duces us to trappers and Indians. Mr. Ballantyne is not a realistic writer. Big Otter, his hero, is a red man of the Fenimore Cooper type ; his far-traders and hunters are considerably idealised ; and no one of his characters is, we should fancy, more indebted to the refining effect of his pen than the half-breed girl, Waboose. But we are quite willing to believe that Mr. Ballantyne knows his own business, and furnishes the article that is wanted. Anyhow, his facility, his good humour, his high spirit, his unfailing ingenuity in the construction of a plot, and, not least, his good sense and good feeling ensure him a hearty welcome.

Mr. Collingwood's story is a good specimen of the scientific extravaganza. Professor von Schalkenberg discovers a metal which he calls " wthereum," and which, while being of a specific gravity considerably less than water, is as hard and firm as iron. Out of this he constructs the Flying Fish,' a machine which is equally capable of being a balloon and a submarine ship, and in which he and his companions, a wealthy baronet, who finds the means (the affair costs only the modest sum of 2100,000), an ex-Colonel, and a Lieutenant in the Navy, go where they will, to the North Pole among other places. Mr. Collingwood, it will be perceived, leaves the line which M. Jules Verne is so carefal to observe, and breaks altogether with probability. Still, granting the prodigious postulate with which he begins—the marvellous metal—he is fairly rational, and his story, with its account of the Polar Sea and its mammoths, King M'Bongweli's doings at Lake Tanganyika and the top of Mount Everest, moves very briskly along.

Mr. Ascott Hope always gives something of a genuine air to his stories. His hermit is quite a natural personage, somewhat crazy, as we fancy a hermit is likely to be nowadays, unless, indeed, he is playing a part, but fall of kindness, and with that carious power of sympathy with the lower creatures which a solitary life often pro- duces. His Red Indians, too—for the scene of the story is laid in the Far West of America—are the real article, not idealised by sentiment, but genine savages, to whom, in the interests of more than one of the senses, it is as well to give as wide a berth as possible. The story is slight, but it is distingaished by Mr. Hope's characteristic merits. We may be allowed to suggest that a recluse who knew his Virgil so well, should not have made the poet make it a test of bad land that the earth dug out of a hole should not be got into it again. On the contrary, he says that this was a proof of its good (apta cereri), while the land that left a space when so pat back was better fitted for the vine.

Granny's Boy is another slight story, a simple narrative of a boy who rose from poverty, to which he had been reduced by family mis- fortunes, to wealth, but very well written both as to style and the drawing of character. There is nothing very original about the boy, who is of the usual " indastrions-apprentice " kind ; but some of the other personages are excellently drawn. Granny, not "kin but kind," is a really affecting sketch of a simple, self-sacrificing nature; while "Pipeclay," the idler, with his fine words and senti- ments ever at command, is an unfailing source of amusement. The humours of life in " Green.yard" are quite admirably described.