The Child's Garland of Little Poems. By Matthias Barr. (Cassell.)—
We have only one objection to this little book—the poems are good enough to be printed on bad paper and published in a limp binding. They are fit for children to murmur over and spoil as they like, WW0-
strained by any fear of nurse's cautions or mamma's grief for her pretty book. A few of them are perhaps a little too poetical for the age they are intended to reach, but the majority are like this, which the mother will of coarse read, touching the features named :—
"Orria, s BABY Smsix.
Only a tongue that wags, Loudly and oft ; Only a little brain, Empty of thought ; Only a little heart, Troubled with naught ; Only a tender flower, Sent us to rear ; Only a life to love While we are here."
If the child is not pleased with that, it should be put to Euclid or Watts's Hymns at once. The get-up of the book is perfect in every way except the binding—the one thing which now needs reform in all these gift-books. The gilding is always overdone, and in this book the centre is a blotch of flowers arranged as flowers were never yet arranged by mortal. A fifth of the cost of printing that thing would have produced an artistic group, but we doubt if these centres are sound taste at all. "Only a baby small, Dropt from the skies ; Only a laughing face, Two sunny eyes ; Only two cherry lips, One chubby nose ; Only two little hands, Ten little toes ; Only a golden head, Curly and soft ;
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