Randolph Caldecott's Sketches. With Introduction by Henry Blackburn. (Sampson Low
and Co.)—This is an extremely interesting volume. In it we get, with the help of Mr. Blackburn's introduction, something like a complete view of Caldecott's career as a draughtsman. Colour has been dispensed with in the repro- duction of the sketches, and so the public is enabled to enjoy at a very moderate price a thoroughly characteristic exhibition of the artist's genius. There are nearly a hundred pages of pictures, some of them containing several sketches, and all for the very
modest sum of half-a-crown. Some of these will be quite new to English readers,—that, for instance, on the cover, which gives three figures, representing England, Scotland, and Ireland,
looking out for the "Daily Graphic Balloon." Some are old favourites,—" The Three Huntsmen," for instance ; "The Pride
of the Family," a silly young man, but silly, one might say, for the time only, returning thanks for his health ; "Hunt- ing in the Midlands ;" and "The Row." The portraits are admirable. Lord Beaconsfield as the "New Premier," Mr.
Gladstone in "Home-rule, 1874," a period that seems as remote as the deluge, and "the passing glimpse of a gentleman whom I took to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer," where a few strokes of the pen gave an admirable presentment of "Bob Lowe." It is not difficult to recognise the original in "A Member of the [Quixotic]
Press." Twice we have Mr. Caldecott himself. The sketches in Brittany are particularly attractive.—One of Caldecott's " picture-books " appears in a small form, The House that Tack Built (Routledge and Sons).
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