ILLUSTRATED GIFT-BOORS.
The new year brings its usual tribute of books in this kind; but we do not often find among them evidence of such true and original powers in art as one of those lying before us witnesses to. Child's Play is a gleaning from the verses and catches familiar to our earliest years. Their illustrator, "E. V. B.," we may pronounce, without great risk, to be an amateur and a lady ; neither do we much increase the hazard by affirming that she is possessed of genius. Her ideas are not laacknied ; and the singularity which is demanded by their themes is made to consist, not in the fantastic or grotesque, but in a strangeness less easily definable, and more appropriately expressive. They are unlike fact, and very much like fancy—the fancy of a child. One thing which strikes us particularly in these designs is their aspect of sunny brilliancy ; the bright haze with which retrospect invests our childhood seems to pervade them. A certain profusion with which natural objects are introduced and treated is in the same intimate feeling of emotional truth : as also the bringing in of irrelevant figures and actions. Let us turn, for in- stance, to the illustration to
"Draw a pail of water For my lady's daughter," &c.
This contains some very beautiful design ; but what makes it like the rhyme are the two infants coming down the well-steps, the quaint boy
tutoring a squirrel, and the child's head peeping amid ivy through the bole of a tree. Yet why these are there we know not. In the subject they mean nothing—everything in the sentiment Some of E. V. B.'s themes are intractable, and next to intangible. It is very hard work for an artist to pick up gold and silver from " Tom Tickler's ground ".; and we are not certain that she has worked at the most productive spots of the diggings. Perhaps here, and in one or two other cases, the directly fantastic would be the more appropriate style. On the opposite hand, there are instances where the subject is capable of treatment according to the more ordinary rules of artistic consistency ; and here E. V. B. displays really high powers. The design of the desolate lady, whose heart longs across the waters- " Ah ! that I were where I would be ! Then should I be where I am not ; But, where lam, there I must be, And where I would be I am not "—
is exquisite in sentiment and completeness and contains the element of colour in a remarkable degree. There is gee a strangeness of beauty in the lady who holds "the cup all of gold, filled with wine " ; in the sunset- flush, and the castle-steps kissed by the waves, which her long garment trails in. In these two designs, and generally throughout the book, the landscape displays imaginative beauty.
E. V. B. is far from being an impeccable artist. Her drawing is often defective, and she seems to have an indifferent eye for proportion; a fault, however, which, under the peculiar conditions entering into these design; tells almost with good effect on occasion. Her special qualifica- tions for this task—implying abilities which fit her to undertake art in a less peculiar range—are an evident love and observation of children, a true feeling for beauty, but less in form than in combination and arrange- ment, and a poetic sense which carries her out of literality while it stops short of idealism. She paints in " dream-colour" ; but it is that of the child—" dim, delicious hopes," and innocent wonder—not of the visionary.
Another nicely illustrated book is 771e Little Sister; the plates by H. I. Schneider, the text by Mrs. Harriet Myrtle. The former are very Ger- man simple and truthful in subject and execution, exhibiting many fami- liar Phases of childhood in an engaging manner. But the artist, though correct, is rather timid, and his engraver more so. The scenes are studied, and closely studied, from life : yet they are not lifelike in a very high sense. It is a pleasant and acceptable book, however ; likely to make Herr Schneider a favourite, not undeservedly, in many English homes. Mrs. Myrtle's part also is pleasing.
The solid German is considerably unlike the Englishman who embel- lishes Home and its Pleasures, another of Mrs. Myrtle's numerous contri- butions to juvenile literature,—Mr. Hablot X. Browne, the very clever high priest of flimsiness. These particular specimens of his dexterity may be recognized by some as having appeared in a Christmas volume of last year, named "Home Pictures"; ; and from the service they have evi- dently seen, we deduce popularity.
The same artist shows to better advantage in a clever little:book, Aunt EFe's Rhymes for Children. These rhymes are neat, sometimes even pointed ; yet intelligible to the audience they address ; and are like- ly to be found amusing. But the author is rather too fond of insinuating a lecture : her moral is not exactly obtrusive, but intrusive— popping upon you hire Paul Pry. 4' Phiz' here displays a slight tendency to quaintness, —a quality which, amid all his funniness, we had not before observed in him.
Good in Everything, by Mrs. Barwell, is a recommendable tale, il- lustrated by Gilbert,—whose handiwork it would be impossible to find absent from a packet of juvenile or Christmas books. A tale of the mildest order of literature and morals is Kindness and Cruelty, by Dr. Perrier, the founder in Germany of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ; the incidents and inferred principles being more than obvious. The prints are in the style of Mr. Wehnert,—very close, if not very good,
Mr. Thomas Miller has written a tale called The Village Queen,—a rather finespun and unsubstantial yarn, into which threads of verse-quotation are liberally enwoven,—as a vehicle for rifacimenti from Messrs. Wehnert, Absolon, Lee, and Weir ; so-called water-colour drawings—in other words, designs printed in colours. The book presents a rather outworn and "got- up to order" aspect ; reminding one of a second-day hash. But then, as Mr. Miller observes, "the limits of the illustrations did not permit him to take that broad range among country characters, which the four hun- dred close pages of Gideon Giles' afforded him " ; so that we have to make up our minds as best we may to being one of his "thousands of indulgent readers."
The New llsles from Fairy Land do not appear to come from the same place as the old Cinderella and Blue-beard, though the author professes to have been incited by recollections of the "pleasant books" of childhood. Our fairy tales have grown sentimental, allegorical, self-conscious, and sweetly written. No more ogres to eat you at a mouthful, unless they mean something profound by doing so: no more pusses to put on boots, unless these be congenial to the feline economy : no more bean-stalks to climb, unless the clouds which close round you in your ascent are those of sublimated morals and spirituality. We don't believe the new school of fairy-tales is half so likely to do good as the old, guiltless of moral meaning as it was : and as for entertainment—However, the stories before us are the production of a lady (so we presume) of considerable elegance and maturity of style. The tone of thought as well as writing is sustained, and at times approaches the poetic. The morals inculcated are unexceptionable enough. Sickly they cannot be called; in terms, indeed, they are much the reverse ; yet, like so many works of our present literature, the latent influence, if not exactly morbid, is not towards healthy stoutness and bravery of heart.
Previous page
