BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG. * AMONG the usual tokens of approaching
Christmas is a large crop of amusing books for boys and girls of all ages. We begin our notice with the most juvenile class, and here we meet with some new candidates for nursery fame, and a choice collection of old favourites published by Messrs. Routledge. Their Popular Nursery Tales and Rhymes comprise nearly two score of im- mortal compositions, tales that have fed the infant imagination of a Dickens and a Thackeray, and rhymes from which the infant genius of Tennyson may have caught the first rudiments of its proper utterance. The book is profusely illustrated, as a child's book ought to be. Almost every page has a capital cut, and some of the animal portraits are almost worthy of Kohlrausch. The library of no English gentleman or lady of five years of age can be considered complete without this delightful volume. If books are to be prized in proportion to the force and quality of the influence they may exercise upon the germinal minds of a generation, we can hardly give too much praise to The History of Sir Thomas Thumb by the author of The Heir of Redclire. The well-known incidents of the old story are here told with great spirit, and with it are incorporated some beautiful legends of the court of King Arthur, where Tom was a favourite accord- ing to the popular version, and scenes in Fairyland, where his courage and constancy were put to the severest proof. Thus whilst providing palatable food for young imaginations, the author has sought also to restore to our children that old nurture of heroic feeling which has been ill exchanged for the dry husks of utilitarianism, and the unwholesome garbage purveyed by the professors of burlesque. I congenial pencil has well seconded the story-teller's wise intention. The contrast is extreme between this model of romance for childhood and Mr. Brough's anti-romantic tale of Ulf, the Min- strel. By all means let children have their fill of childish fun, but do not poison their bodies with tobacco' gin, and bitter beer, or taint the freshness of their minds with slang, flippancy, and the spurious humour that suits a fast man's vitiated appetite.
* Popular Nursery Tales and Rhymes. With One Hundred and Seventy Illus- trations. Published by Routledge and Co. The History of Sir Thomas 7'humb. By the Author of" The Heir of Redcliffe," Re. Illustrated by .1. B. Published by Constable and Co. Ulf the Minstrel, or the Princess Diamonduckz and the Hazel Fairy : a Dragon Story for Christmas. By Robert B. Brough. Published by Houlston and Wright. Runny Fables for Little Folks. By Frances Freeliug Broderip. With Illus- trations by her Brother, Thomas Hood. Published by Griffith and Ferran. 27se Nine Lire,' of a Cat. A Tale of Wonder. By Charles Bennett. Author of "Shadows." Published by Griffith and Farran. Nursery Poetry.. By Mrs. Motherly. Published by Bell and 1)a14.The Life of Christopher Columbus in Short Words. By Sarah Crompton, Author
of " Practical Notes of a Plan to combine Education with Instruction," fte. Pub- lished by Bell and Biddy.
.Chronicles of an Old English Oak; or,Sketches of English Life and History, as reported by those who listened to them. Edited by Emily Taylor. Author of "The Boy and Birds," &c. Published by Groombridge and Sons. Actfea. A First Lesson in Natural Ilislory, By Mrs. Agassiz, Second Edition. Published by Low and Co. The White Elephant ; or, the Hunters of Ara and the King of the Golden Foot. By William Dalton, Author of the " War Tiger," 8m. With Iliustrations by Damson Weir. Published by Griffith and Farrell. Out and About : a Boy's Adventures, written for Adventurous Boys. By Hain Friswell. With Illustrations by George Cruikshank. Published by Groonthridge and Sons.
771e World of Tee; or, Adventures in the Polar Re.gions. By Robert Michael Bellantyne, Author of "Hudson's Bay ; or, Every-day Life in the Wilds of North America," tat. With Illustrations. Published by Nelson and Sons. -Ernest liraccbridge ; or, Schoolboy Days. By William E.G. Kingston, Author of "Peter the Whaler." &c. Illustrated by George II. Thomas. Published by Sampson Low, Son, and Co. Kingston's Annual for Boys, 1860. Published by Bosworth and Harrison, Funny Fables for Little Folks are sprightly and lanoiful, sd
likely, we think, to find favour in the nursery. ,
Mr. Charles Bennett's metrical history of The Nine Lives eta Cat is a piece of acute nonsense which, having arrived at the dignity of a nursery tale in his own family, has been very nicely printed with a series of droll illustrations by the author. We are indebted to Mrs. Motherly for one of the rarest things in modern literature, a really good volume of Nursery Poetry. It is enriched with eight etchings, very gracefully designed and executed. What can be truer to the spirit of childhood than this ditty to
THE BILLY-GOAT.
Billy-goat, Billy-goat, where are you going ? Down the green lane where the roses are blowing. What shall you do, pretty Billy-goat, there ? Tread on the daisies, and breathe the fresh air. Billy-goat, Billy-goat, may I go too ? I'll pick the fresh grass and I'll give it to you. When I am tired you'll give me a ride, When I am rested I'll run by your side; So Billy-goat, Billy-goat, let us be going Down the green lane where the roses are blowing.
In The Life of Christopher Columbus in Short Words the author has fairly executed a very happy conception. More complex in subject, and requiring greater efforts of atten- tion and imagination on the part of the young reader, is Miss Emily Taylor's Chronicles of an Old English Oak. This patriarch of the forest, even more garrulously given than his younger brother of Cumnor Chace, recounts the reminiscences of a thousand years, in which he appears to have felt a lively interest in human affairs, and taken good note of their varying phases. The world, he ob- serves, moved much more slowly in early times than now, but the great starts it took now and then are what make the events in his calendar ; and these the intelligent old fellow recounts in a plea- sant and graphic manner, for he does not talk like a book, but rather like a picture. - Popular expositions of science are generally to be received with caution, many of them being written by persons who have but a second-hand knowledge of their subjects, or not so much even, and misrepresent them accordingly. There are few books indeed of this class in which the reader can have such entire confidence as in Acteea : a First Lesson in Natural History, by Mrs. Agassiz, the wife of the illustrious professor. It is an excellent companion to the aquarium describing in the simplest and most lucid manner the structure and habits of Polyps, Acalephs, and Echino- derms, and the wonderful works of the coral-builders. The popularity of the book is shown by its having reached a second edition.
Half a dozen books written expressly for boys are before us, in most of which adventures at home and abroad, and snatches of natural history form the principal matter. Perhaps the best of them all, though some of the others are not far behind it, is The White Elephant, by Mr. Dalton. The scene is laid in the Birman empire at the period of the last war waged against it by the Eng- lish, and the story is constructed with great skill, so as to present in the most vivid and picturesque manner the information which the author has carefully gathered from ancient and modern tra- vellers respecting that remote region, which is almost a terra incognita to home-staying Englishmen, and therefore a peculiarly fine field for a tale of romantic adventure. Mr. Dalton's hero is the son of an English merchant settled in Rangoon. The lad ar- rives there from school in England to find his father dead and his property confiscated. The war breaks out soon after, and he is taken prisoner along with the rest of the English residents, and threatened with instant execution. His escape through endless difficulties and dangers, with the aid of two or three natives whom he has attached to his fortunes, is the subject of a most animated narrative, which we heartily commend to the perusal of all boyi from seven years old to seventy,. Out and About is another lively story of a brave boy who is thrown on his own resources by the death of his father. He shies on board a brig fitted out by private enterprise to search for Sir John Franklin, passes a winter in the Arctic ice, is wrecked, visits America, traverses the Rocky Mountains and the Prairies, sails for Figi anZ makes the acquaintance of an Irish King of the Cannibal Islands, returns to England, gets a windfall from a re- lation in Australia, sails for Persia as lieutenant on board a Queen's ship, is made a lieutenant, and comes home and marries his schoolmaster's daughter. Neither this story nor The World of Ice, which is another tale of Arctic adventure, equals The White Elephant in neatness of style and construction or in veri- similitude; but both are full of interesting matter for which there is more or less warrant in authentic histories.
Ernest Braccbridge ; or, Schoolboy Days is a prose Iliad, of school life, full of incident and character. Its author is also the editor of a capital Annual for Boys, the readers of which will one and all very heartily wish him many happy returns of the season.
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