CURRENT LITERATURE.
CHRISTMAS BOOKS.
time of one of the most meritorious periodicals of the present day— the Portfolio. In the very handsome volume before us wo have twelve essays on contemporary painters by Messrs. Beavington Atkinson, Sidney Colvin, Hamerton, W. Rossetti, and Tom Taylor, each of them illustrated with a photograph after an original drawing of the artist, or one of the artists, whose merits are discussed. Mr. Solomon's beautiful "When the Shadows Flee Away," a finely imagined representation of morning and evening ; Mr. Calderon's very powerful drawing of Dr. Johnson carrying home an outcast woman; and Mr. Watts' figuring of the words "The people that walked in darkness have seen,a great light," a marvellous rendering of eager longing, strike us as being the gems of the volume ; but everything in it aims at and at least comes very near to reaching a very high standard. It is not often that one has the pleasure of seeing such genuine conscientious art. —Pictures from English Literature (Cassell and Co.) is another volume of great merit, though in a very different style from that last mentioned. Mr. J. F. Waller has selected famous passages from great English writers, from Chaucer to Tennyson, and these are illustrated by eminent artists of the day. Mr. J. D. Watson's "Una," a figure exquisitely simple and sweet ; Mr. Feed's admirable impersonation of "Jeanie Deans ;" Mr. R. Barnes' "Colonel Newcome," though this is some- what spoiled by the careless drawing of the boys in the back- ground, are the drawings which strike the writer's fancy. Many, doubtless, will prefer Mr. C. Green's "Dick Dowlas " and Mr. S. L. Fildes's powerful " Haidee."—Poems of Thomas flood. Illustrated by Birket Foster. (Meson.) The selections are taken from the "Serious Poems" of Hood. These wore always the author's favourites. It was thus that he wrote con amore, while ho joked, partly, perhaps, because he could not help it, but chiefly because the jokes sold. One aspect of this higher mood finds a fit exponent in Mr. Birket Foster's pencil. The illustrations—they are exquisitely engraved on steel, and yet we feel a preference for the more familiar material in which Mr. Foster is wont to work—are all landscapes or of the landscape class, scenes on the sea or in the city streets, and their imaginative beauty represents very well a quality of mind which Hood certainly possessed. Yet Hood, after all, was a poet chiefly of human nature. Those illustra- tions, though we should delight in them anywhere, would better suit Wordsworth.—The Legend of the Knight of the Red Crosse. Illustrated by C. M. B. Morrell. (Sampson Low and Co.)—Miss Morrell illustrates with twelve drawings, which are always careful, and sometimes, as in that which bears the motto, "They brought the heavy corso with easy pace To yawning guile of deepe Avernus hole," show considerable imagina- tive power.—Zigzagging amongst the Dolomites. (Longman.) Here we have a perfect treasure-house of enjoyment. Every one knows, or ought to know, the clever pencil which set forth the adventures of the "Voyage en Zigzag," and it will therefore be scarcely needful to say more than that in this volume we have some forty pages, each with its seven or eight little sketches, delightful for their grace and humour. The book represents the travels of a band of friends who begin by making their way to Lombardy, and then journey home- wards "en zigzag" through the Tyrol, finishing their tour with Ober-Ammergan and the "Passion Spiel." It is impossible to give any idea of the freshness and variety with which the artists picture scenes and personages of travel. Wo can only send our readers to the book itself. Let them make trial of its cheering properties on some doleful occasion. We noticed the. other day in a contemporary a remark which was not intended to bo wholly complimentary, that a certain book was very fit to lie on a dentist's table. Yet it should be high praise. We can quite imagine it possible to forget that awful black-leather chair over "Zigzagging among the Dolomites ;" only the summons would be doubly painful if it came before we had reached the end.—Collects of the Church of England. (Macmillan.)—Here we have each collect illustrated with a flower appropriately chosen, Many of the Saints have some traditional associations of the kind ; and so have such days as Good Friday and Easter Sunday. For most of the Sundays nothing could be done better than to select some flower that is commonly in bloom at the time. The flowers are prettily drawn and coloured in the naturalistic style. Animal Life in Europe (Religious Tract Society) is a book in which both the letter-press and the coloured illustrations are of a meritorious kind.—Messrs. Moxon publish editions of IVords- worth's Poems and Longfellow's Poems. Both of these volumes are illustrated with etchings of considerable merit by Mr. Edwin Edwards, and are furnished with a short critical notice of the author from tho pan of Mr. W. M. Rossetti. Mr. Rossetti has much insight as a critic, a judgment which is generally sound, and an excellent faculty of express- ing what he means. His estimate of Longfellow's powers is remarkably able. But he has one unhappy prepossession. He complains of Words- worth that " a certain crust of respectability Clogged and warped the clear and pure contour of his mind." This respectability prevented him, it seems, from becoming the "poet of man unsophisti- cated by circumstances, uncramped by scruples." The reader will be able to interpret this passage the better when he turns to the companion volume and reads the closing sentence, the expression of an idolatry to which Mr. Rossetti is unhappily enslaved,—" The real American poet is Walter Whitman." "Uncramped by scruples" must mean without a sense of morality or decency. Wo must not omit to notice that the edition of Wordsworth is stated to be "the only complete cheap edition."—A similar recommendation belongs to Poetical Works of H. W. Longfellow (Routledge), which is, we learn, "the author's complete edition," and which contains " The New England Tragedies," works in which, we suppose, an English copyright exists. The volume, besides having this claim on the attention of purchasers, is particularly pleasing, both as regards binding and typography, and is furnished with some pretty illustrations by Mr. John Gilbert.—The Lord of the Isles (Provost) is an edition of Scott's well-known poem, made attractive by handsome binding and clear typography—it is a relief sometimes to be able to read without the aid of a microscope—but its chief ornament is the series of photographs with which it is illustrated, which pleasantly remind us of that glorious west coast of Scotland, where the scene of the action is for the most part laid.— Wonders of European Art. By Louis Viardot. (Sampson Low and Co.)—This is the second of three volumes, one of which, on Italian art, was published last year ; and one of which, treating of the English school, has yet to appear. In the work before us M. Viardot treats of the Spanish, German, Flemish, Dutch, and French schools. The proportion in which space is allotted, though flattering to our national vanity, is surprising. There is not one of these five schools which may not fairly claim, at least, equal importance with our own. One of them, the Flemish, may almost contest the
first place with Italy. The radical fault, then, of the book is that it aims at too much, and sins mach by omission and hurry. Tho modern school of Flemish art, for instance, which those who have seen the exhibition of the last few years will not fail to rank very high, is dismissed in a few lines with a baro string of names. But M. Viardot is an acute and discriminating critic, who does not confine himself to stereotyped phrases of admiration. Twenty- seven illustrations, eleven of them wood engravings, and sixteen repro- ductions of engravings by the Woodbury permanent process, adorn the volume.
In speaking last week of Mr. W. H. G. Kingston's Marmaduke
we ought also to have mentioned his In the Eastern Seas (Nelson), which aims at being more instructive than its companion. Walter, the hero, sails about the Eastern seas, and while he meets with the usual adventures, keeps his eyes open to observe birds, beasts, fishes, and things in general. Adventures and information are faikly balanced, and the book will not drag with any but the most frivolous boy readers. Mr. Kingston has a good model in Captain Marryat, but should beware of taking details from his orighial. The turning of Walter into Lord Heathfleld re- minds us too strongly of "Peter Simple."—Stories about Boys, by Ascott R. Hope (Nimmo), contains a number of short tales, reprinted for the most part, by a well-known and most successful writer. The first, "Dr. Lickemwell's Christmas Dinner," is really good ; the rest at least deserve the modest estimate which the author puts upon them,—that "they are no more unnatural or uninteresting than half of the stories written for the rising generation."—Tales of the Civil Wars, contain- ing two stories, " The Boy Cavaliers," and "Friend or Foe," which is de- scribed as "a tale of Sedgmoor," by the Rev. H. C. Adams (Routledge), are stirring enough, and take the side to which the sympathies of most boys incline. We have also received the latter in a separate volume.—We hope that our young friends will have the good taste to admire Stories of the Olden Time (Cassell and Co.), which Mr. M. Jones very cleverly abbreviates and generally adapts for their use from the chronicles of Joinville and Froissart. The book is very well done, and we strongly recommend it.—The Story of Robin Hood, by William Heaton, with its bright-coloured pictures, will please the younger fry. For their benefit, also, we have a variety of little books, which we can scarcely do more than enumerate ; Lottie's White Frock; The Golden Gate, and other Stories, by H. G. 13. Hunt ; Labour Stands on Golden Feet, from the German of Heinrich Zschokke,—a third edition ; Helpful Nellie, and Tommy and his Broom (all these published by Messrs. Cassell and Co.) Messrs. Routledge publish Put Of is not Done With, and other Stories, by Hans 0. Andersen ; Poultry Meg's Family, and other Stories, drawn from the same inexhaustible mine (both these are translated by H. W. Dulcken); Spider Spinnings, the family history of a spider, told for the admirable object of teaching the young not to be cruel; The Holiday Camp, by R. St. John Corbel, "a story for boys and girls," in the realism of which, the plain, unvarnished descriptions of boating and fishing, they will doubtless rejoice ; On the Seas, the tale of a voyage to Arctic regions, and of a winter spent in an icebound ship ; and The Orville College Boys, a reprint of a tale by Mrs. Henry Wood, one of the very few women who know how to write about boys ; and the Hunting-Grounds of the Old World, by the Old Shekarry, another old favourite making a welcome reappearance.— Wonderful Escapes, by Richard Whiteing (Cassell and Co.), takes us into some of the byways of history. Mr. Whiteing translates, for the most part, from the French of M. F. Bernard. Such stories as that which Benvennto Cellini tolls of himself, as those of Charles II., Charles Edward, Baron Trenok, never weary one ; the translator has added some interesting chapters of his own, in one of which he describes the escape of Louis Napoleon from Ham, in another that of the Fenian James Stephens from the Richmond Bridewell. We miss tho romantic narrative of the escape of Felice Orsini, and we should like to have seen, as a specimen of what fiction can do by the side of reality, that marvellous scene in the Chateau d'If when the future Monte Christ° escapes in the barial-sack. —In Light-Houses and Light-Ships (Nelson) Mr. W. H. Davenport
Adams puts together a number of facts about lighthouses, ancient and modern ; and in the Rock Light (Warne and Co.), Miss Eleanore L. Hervey weaves into a pretty tale the story of the second Eddystone Light- house,—that built by John Rudyard in 1706.
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