CURRENT LITERATURE.
CHRISTMAS BOOKS.
Sacred Allegories. By the Rev. W. Adams. (Rivingtons.)—Mr. Adams' beautiful allegories are worthy of all the honour which can be done to them by illustration and ornament. It is, indeed, making no small demand on the powers of even a great artist to ask him to be always equal to the grace and tenderness of the text. The volume before us will please all who examine it, though it can hardly satisfy them. In "The Old Man's Home," which, though scarcely an allegory, is perhaps the best of the four tales, Mr. Horsfall has had to cope with the difficulty of having every-day subjects for his pencil, and is not always successful. Mr. Cope, in illustrating "The King's Messengers," has the advantage of handling the conventional figures and scenes of romance, and never falls below his level. Our own preference is given to the imaginative landscapes with which Mr. Palmer has adorned "The Distant Hills." The illustrations to "The Shadow of the Cross" show the familiar excellence of Mr. Birket Foster, whose hand is seen elsewhere ; and of Mr. Hicks. The typography and binding of the volume are excellent.—The same commendation may be bestowed with at least equal truth on Episodes of Fiction (Nimmo). The idea of this book is an excellent one. Choice scenes are selected from the works of some twenty novelists, belonging chiefly to the last century and to the early years of the present. Nearly all of these writers, though not forgotten, are known to most readers by name only. In the case of more than one of them, and these the greatest, the change of manners has made this a necessity. Yet it is a pity that so little should be known of such writers as Fielding and Smollett. Here an attempt is made to supply the deficiency. Well written biographical notices are prefixed to the extracts, and there are some excellent illustrations.—Books on "the language of flowers" are generally little better than sentimental rubbish, but an exception must be made in favour of Flora Symbolica, by John Ingram (Warne and Co.) Mr. Ingram has furnished his work with a very copious supply of literary illustrations, and has thus given it a more than com- mon amount of interest. Some of the descriptions are accompanied by pictures printed in colours. These seem a little stiff, and not always quite faithful in colour ; but many of them are pretty.—Of selections of English poetry there is no end. The Household Treasury of English Songs is a handsome volume, put together with taste, against which we have nothing to object, except, perhaps, that it aims at too much.— Christ in Song, by Philip Schaff, D.D. (Sampson Low), is a collection of sacred poetry of all ages. Dr. Schaff has taken so much pains with his work, and is so careful to do justice to the author whom he quotes, noting all alterations that have been made by hymn collectors, &e., that we ask him, not without surprise, why the collects appear in an unfamiliar form, which certainly does not commend itself to us.—Lost, by the Rev. J. C. Atkinson (Sampson Low), is a tale for young people of a more sensa- tional kind than we can altogether approve. A bigamy and an elopement, though we are bound to say that these are ultimately explained away into something else, are not the fare which we should provide for youthful consumers.—A well-known book, the Great Battles of the British Army (Routledge), has been enlarged and brought up to the present time by introducing accounts of the Indian Mutiny and the Abyssinian Expedition.—Boys will find three specimens of a literature particularly devoted to themselves in the Book of Manly Gaines for Boys, by Captain Crawley (Tegg), the Boy's Home Book of Sports, Games, and Pastimes (Lockwood), and Many Happy Returns of the Day, by Charles and Mary Cloclen Clarke (Lockwood). Captain Crawley wisely excludes from his work the attempts to give a smattering of various sciences which filled out uselessly the older compilations. Everything about his book seems very practical and business-like, and every effort has been made to give the latest information and to make it complete. And yet how im- possible a thing this completeness is! Fancy the noble game of "four-corners," which is, or used to be, to Oxford what the discus was to Athens, being dismissed in a few lines, as a mere variety of nine-pins! The merit of Mr. and Mrs. Clarke's book is rather lite- rary than practical. So far it is, as might be expected from the reputa- tion of its authors, very considerable.—Tom Duntaone's Troubles, by Mrs. Eiloart (Routledge), is a capital story, told with plenty of humour and spirit, of a lad's successful battle with the difficulties of life.— Fred and the Gorillas, by Thomas Miller (Routledge), is meant, we sup- pose, for a caricature of travellers' tales. We must confess that we did not find it a very lively one.—Lieutenant Low, in his Tales of Old Ocean (Hodder and Stoughton), succeeds certainly better when he is afloat than when he is ashore. The tales of adventures on the sea are generally told simply and effectively, but nothing could be more absurd than the "Sea-Side Story." Fancy an old salt talking of his delight, when he was trying to recover a drowned child, at finding "the life-blood of the poor infant again warming with its revivifying powers the delicate human organization!" This is too much, though the old gentleman, as we find afterwards, does live in an earl's house.—The IVay to Win, by Charles H. Beach (Lockwood), is described as "a story of adventure afloat and ashore." We have read it with interest, no little thing to say, after what we have undergone during the last fortnight, and can recommend it as a good tale told in a manly and unaffected style.—Anecdotes of Dogs, by the Rev. Charles Williams (Routledge), gives us, as books on this subject always do, something fresh. Some of Mr. Williams' acquaintances seem to have bad a gift of tears which we do not remember to have observed in the race ; and one animal, who having reared a lamb, not only mourned over its death, but actually dug a grave and buried it, deserves special commemoration.—The Lost Chamois Hunter, a Tale of the Alai- ter/torn, is, unless our memory deceives us, an old favourite.— Alice Leighton, Hugh We//wood's Success, and Carry's Rose are three little tales by Mrs. George Clippies (Nelson), of which we may single out the third for praise.—Those who want to read about the preemies of mining, smelting, dm., may find the information with a slender covering of story in Pits and Furnaces, by Mrs. Alfred Payne (Hodder and Stoughton).—Manche and Agnes, by Mrs. Perring (Routledge), is a readable little tale.—The same may be said of Holidays at Limewood (Routledge).—Mr. Elihu Burritts in his Saul and Jacob (Sampson Low), ventures to do full justice to the character of Esau. This somewhat reconciles us to the book, though we do not like the class.—Three reprints of popular works may be classed together, Julian; or, Letters from Judea, by the Rev. H. Ware (Warne); the Prince of Me House of David; and the Pillar of Fire, by the Rev. J. IL Ingraham (Routledge). Julian is, we believe, well known already to Eng- lish readers. The idea of the book is to give the impressions made on an eyewitness by the events recorded in the Gospel narrative. May we venture to ask why the publishers have adorned their book with an engraving (certainly very well executed) of Julian the Apostate ? The two works by Mr. Ingraham are of much the same character, and will please the same readers. The Prince of Me House of David treats of the same period as does Julian, and consists of letters written by one Adina, a Jewish maiden. Tho writer in the Pillar of Fire is a Pheenician Prince who happens to be residing in /Egypt at the time of the Exodus.—Among books of a religious character we have to mention Sunday Evenings at Brockleigh Hall, and Claude Spencer, and other Tales, by Mrs. F. Marshall Ward (Bemrose).—Our Nurse's Own Picture-Book contains fairy tales, &c., gorgeously illustrated.
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