CURRENT LITERATURE.
CHRISTMAS BOOKS.
Hector &wradac. By Jules Verne. Translated by Ellen C. Trower. (Sampson Low and Co.) Hector Sorvadac, captain in the army of Algiers, is transferred, together with his orderly, by some means from the earth to the surface of a comet. He finds some twenty or thirty other inhabitants, who have been similarly transported, and these persons accompany perforce the "career of a comet." Happily for them the curve of its orbit is a closed curve, but as it takes them beyond Saturn, they endure considerable inconveniences. The opportune discovery of a volcano saves them from perishing by cold. Altogether their proceedings are described with that mixture of plausibility and extravagance to which M. Verne's readers are accus- tomed. A humorous element is supplied by the orderly, who is a sort of Sancho Panza in his way ; by an astronomer who, having first discovered the comet, considers it his peculiar property, and views with dismay the prospect of returning to the earth ; and by a party of Englishmen, remnants of the garrison of Gibraltar, who amidst the catastrophes of nature retain their insular reserve. The idea of the book seems to us a happy one. Readers would probably refuse to care about the doings of imaginary inhabitants of Mars or Jupiter, but they feel an interest in human beings who struggle to support life under conditions which we may suppose to exist in the more remote planets. These conditions the author describes with no little graphic force. Yet there are mistakes in the book which, as M. Verne's scientific knowledge is, wo suppose, beyond impeachment, must be shared between the printer and the translator. For instance, we find it stated that the mean density of Jupiter is only about "a quarter of that of the earth, and only a third of that of water." The clause italicised ought to be "one and a half times." Again, we find 49,000,000 miles is "about twice the distance of the moon from the earth,"—a passage which can only be made sound by the bold conjecture, "not quite half the distance of tho earth from the sun." Tho author must be responsible for the restatement of an obsolete hypothesis that the asteroids are the result of tho disintegration of a large planet, and also for the strange idea that a "cumbrous muzzle-loader of 9-inch calibre," could carry " a full-sized shot, weighing 200 lbs., about four miles."—Wilton of Cuthbert's : a Tale of Undergraduate Life Thirty Years Ago, by the Rev. W. C. Adams, M.A. (Griffith and Farran), is a sufficiently interesting story of an ordinary kind. Mr. Adams, of course, knows very well the life which he draws, and though he has no special gift for representing character, he gives to the talk and doings of his personages a certain appearance of life. The villain of the story is indeed a conventional and really improbable person. The plot which he lays for ruining the hero is an incident scarcely, we imagine, to be found out of the pages of a novel. The "thirty years ago" takes back the render to events which have become historical, and these Mr. Adams introduces into his story. We have a spirited description of the famous row when the most unpopular of proctors, the late Mr. Jeff, was hissed in the theatre, and another of the "seven oar" race at Henley. "Wilton of Cuthbert's " is, we ought to have said, a man who reads, without being technically a reading-man. Ho stands for a large class, and should be proportionally interesting.—Mr. W. H. G. Kingston provides entertainment as usual for a public which knows him very well. The Two Supercargoes (Sampson Low and Co.), is quite one of his best. Two lads are taken into a Liverpool office, not long reformed from the old evil ways of slave-trading and the like, and having a disagreeable remnant of them in one Captain Roderick Trunnion, who calls himself a privateer, but is really a pirate, the brother of one of the partners. A trading venture offers itself, and the two friends go out as "two supercargoes." Of course, the pirate captain appears on the scene, and captures his brother's vessel. Finally, the two escape, with a black guide, whose brother luckily turns up when the party is in want of his services. Such coincidences are, of course, frequent ; in books of this kind, wo look for them as a matter of course, and are, indeed, aggrieved if the ship, or whatever else may be wanted, does not turn up at the right moment, and if the captain is not the dearest friend or bitterest foe, as the case may be, of the hero.— The Three Admirals is, wo believe, a new edition of a book which concludes a series of tales describing the adventures of three commanders in the Navy.—Another book, in which the scene is laid in South America, is The Young Llanero.— The Settler and the Savage, by R. M. Ballantyno (Nisbet), takes us to South Africa. The author always knows how to make an in- teresting story, and does so here. In our judgment, the fault of the book is something which, very likely, he takes to bo its chief merit. It introduces us to Cape politics. Now, we are not prepared to give an opinion on the conduct of a Governor who ceased to exist some fifty years ago, or the still more intricate question of tho policy of the British Government and the wrongs of the Dutch colonists. One thing is pretty clear, that the "Free States," which were the out- come of Dutch discontent, have made a mess of it. Apart from this, the story is lively and attractive. We would especially commend a description of an invasion by locusts, which gives the practical side of that fearful visitation with striking fidelity. The Christmas Story-Teller, by Old Hands and New Ones (Sampson Low and Co.), contains thirty and more stories, some of which, as they boar the names of writers who have been for some time dead, aro, wo suppose, reprinted. Among these names wo find those of Shirley Brooks, Mark Lemon, Walter Thornbury, and Tom Hood. One tale, "What might have happened Last Christmas," is described as "the last story written by Mark Lemon." Volumes made up in this way of pieces written for the most part to supply deficiencies of " copy " can scarcely be of any very groat merit, but The Christmas Story- Teller is anyhow good of its kind. " What came of killing a Mill Tonoh ono Christmas-Time," by Mark Lemon, is, perhaps, the best thing in the book. It has an idea of its own which just lasts out the length of the story, without being exhausted.—Told by the Sea : Tales of the Coast, by F. Frankfort Moore (Marcus Ward), a smaller collection of short stories, among which tastes for tragedy, comedy, and farce may find each their satisfaction. Perhaps "Mr. Plassington'e Journal," which is of the farce kind, is the best.—To the same class belongs also A Holiday Book ; Stories for the Young, by Richard Rowe (Nimmo), a collection of stories written for maga. zines and now republished. The tales specially suited to the young, as "Tom at Rosherville " and "A Little Girl's Letter from the Sea," are, perhaps, the best. Of the rest, "The Southern Cross" is a fair specimen of the usual Christmas tale, made to wear a somewhat novel aspect by circumstances that haVe not yet been hackneyed. —Jack Granger's Cousin, by Julia A. Matthews (Nisbet), is a really good story of boy-life. The scene is laid in America, but this, while giving a certain freshness to the surroundings of the tale, does not at all detract from its interest, we may say its value. The author seems to us to have a real insight into boys' ways of thinking. Jack Granger is a vigorous young follow, frank and honest and brave, not over-clever, and not too fond of study. On him is put by circumstances the charge of a cousin, whose character presents a strong contrast to his own. He wishes that "he had been born a girl," a wish quite possible, but indicating an attitude of mind which the boyhood of which Jack Granger is the type simply abhors, The relations between the two, Jack's struggles to do his duty, the difficulties which meet him, and the ultimate triumph which he wins over them are admirably described. Books of boy-life are often more descriptions of outside life, often are full of the sentiment with which boys have nothing to do. This story goes below the sur- face, and is serious without being strained, and teaches without preaching.—The Boys of Willoughby School, by Robert Richardson (Nimmo), deserves a word of praise for its truth to nature. We speak here of its general drawing of character, and the tone of its narrative. One of its particular statements strikes us with surprise. Can it be that in an Australian school—for the scene is laid in Australia—the traditions of the old country, traditions now themselves exploded, are or ever have been so implicitly followed that Greek, Latin, and mathematics were studied to nearly the exclusion of other branches of knowledge F--To a third story, which begins at least with a school scene, Harvey Sinclair ; or, a Lesson for Life, by the author of "Nat and Bode" (Nimmo), we cannot give the same praise. Did ever a man nearly knocked on the head by a stone coming through his study window, do what the author describes ? "More than throe ounces in weight," he said slowly, balancing it in the palm of his hand ; "and if it had struck me, the consequences would have been serious, perhaps fatal." Not Dr. Johnson himself, when ho was a schoolmaster, would have so expressed himself. It is this sort of talk that we notice throughout the volume. The effect is not inspiriting.--The Sale of Callowfields, by Mrs. Prosser (Religious Tract Society), is a readable little story. The most attractive personage in it is an Abbe, who gives lessons in French. His life is described with some humour; and when we come to read of his troubilas, with not a little pathos. Kozia Millet, though she recalls too vividly the classic blunders of Mrs. Malaprop, is, for the most part, a woll-drawn character. Her dealings with the Abbe are especially good. Altogether, this is a wholesome little book, commending, without any kind of affectation, a reasonable and genuine piety.—Brave Little Heart, by the Author of "Aunt Tabitha's Waifs," &a. (Itoutledge), is a story of courage and energy displayed in the midst of adverse circumstances. The little heroine is all that is excellent, and those about her have naturally to bo content with the part of foils, her brother Leonard especially, who is silly and selfish, not beyond the possi- bilities of boy-nature, for that would be hard to say, but certainly beyond what can be advantageously described in fiction. We must warn any young reader that the literary success achieved by tho heroine is not a thing to be reckoned upon. She is not more than twenty when we take leave of her, and by that time she is, together with a collaborateur of the singular name of Dr. Funnyman, "the author of some of the most wonderful stories that have delighted the children of the present day."—The Old Looking-glass ; or, Mrs. Dorothy Cope's Recollections of Service, by Maria Louisa Charles- worth. (Seeleys.) There is a wonderful store of sound sense and quiet humour in this little book. Mrs. Dorothy Cope is an old lady who has fulfilled more than fifty years of service, and who here gives the results of her experience. There is nothing less than genius, which, indeed, we already know Miss Charlesworth to possess, in the way in which .the writer identifies herself with the character in which she speaks. We are accustomed to laugh at the idea of evolving out of our consciousness the conception of things foreign to our ex- perience, but the power is a very real, though a very rare power. Any mistress who wants to give to a servant some admirable advice, at once shrewdly practical and wise with the highest wisdom, cannot do bettor than put this book of Miss Oharlesworth's into her hands. There is a thread of story running through the book, for Mrs. Dorothy takes charge of the troublesome child of a helpless mother, and not without some trouble and suffering achieves a success.-- Good out of Evil ; a Tale for Children, by Mrs. Burr (Nelson), is a story of a
quarrel between neighbours, which by wise management and counsel of love, favourable circumstances also helping, is made to end in peace and mutual help. This is the moral of the tale. For adornment, it has, besides pretty pictures of birds, some interesting talk about their ways.
The Great Painters of Christendom. By John Forbes Robertson, (Cassell.)—A series of short and fairly accurate lives of painters, de- rived' from trustworthy popular sources, handsomely printed, with a number of engraved illustrations, some of which are bad, but most of them tolerable as book-engravings go, contained in elaborately orna- mental covers, forms an effective drawing-room volume, and stands a fair chance of assisting in the popular inculcation of the love and knowledge of the beautiful which is its object, and which "can only be mastered by constant iteration," as Mr. Robertson says in his preface. Whether all those included amongst the " great painters" are equally worthy of the name and equally worth mentioning, is another matter. We could have dispensed with such " groat " painters as Angelica Kauf- mann ,Robert Smirk e, Charlet, and others, if we might have had Mantegna, Botticelli, Benceezo Gozzon, and "many mo' " of the earlier Italian schools, who are not mentioned in this work, to fill their place. After a short introductory chapter on the " Thirteenth Century and the Papacy," in which he arrives at the conclusion that the words "Papal supremacy" boat characterise that epoch, Mr. Robertson's narratives run easily along the usual lines, not professing to give more than a summary of the life, works, and leading characteristics of the painters, "from ()imbue to Wilkie," whose histories fill his 489 pages. Begin- ning, then, not without a faint protest in favour of Pisa and Siena, with Oimabue and Giotto, according to time-honoured custom, Mr. Robertson gives us the. leading masters of the Umbrian, Florentine, Venetian, and Milanese schools, culminating in the great names of Michelangelo, Lionardo, Raphael, and Titian, and dying away in the decadence down to Carlo Dolci and Canaletto. The Flemish, Dutch, and Gorman schools form the next division, containing about thirty names, from the Van Eycks, through Rubens and Dilrer, to Angelica Kaufmann, whom we have been accustomed to regard as an English artist, but we will not quarrel with Germany for the possession of poor little Angelica. Zurbaran, Velasquez, and Murillo represent the Spaniards, while the French list of names is about as long as the Dutch and German, from the brothers Le Nein down to Decamps, and amongst whom Clouet is not included. Sixteen English painters, beginning with Hogarth and ending with Wilkie, complete the series. We should have profaned to see rather more space devoted to Michelangelo, to whom is allowed less than half that given to Raphael. Why does Mr. Robertson repeat the old error, originated by VaBari, that the whole of the coiling of the Sistine Chapel was painted in twenty months ? Several recent writers who have investigated the subject have proved by documentary and internal evi- dence that only the first half was completed in that time, between May 10, 1508, and November 1, 1509; while the second half occupied, though of coarse not continuously, the years from that time till 1612 or 1513. Otherwise, Mr. Robertson has a tendency to respectfully underrate Michelangelo in comparison with Raphael, and attempts to reduce his influence on the latter to a minimum.—Messrs. Marcus Ward and Co. have sent us a large assortment of Christmas and New Year's Cards, and of illuminated scrolls, for use in school-rooms or other Christmas gatherings, in which texts appropriate to the occasion are emblazoned with much care and effect. The cards are, as usual, designed with taste and skill, and especially the birds and butterflies and flowers, many of which are extremely beautiful. Those which interest us least are the comic pictures,— of which, however, there are relatively very few. The comedy of each pictures is apt to be a little vulgar, and we cannot say that we think Messrs. Ward's comic pictures escape this danger. The great majority, however, of the designs are beautiful, and the colouring delicate.
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