CURRENT LITERATURE.
CHRISTMAS BOOKS.
Flemish and French Pictures : with Notes concerning the Painters and their Works. By F. G. Stephens. (Sampson Low and Co.) This is a most meritorious work, both as regards its literary and its artistic part. The notes, which touch both on biography and on art, are interesting and instructive; the illustrations are of unusual excellence, some of them being quite uncommon in their merit. It might be enough to say that they have already appeared in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, but some seem to require a special notice. "Tho Man with the Pinks," engraved by M. Gaillard, after Van Eyck, is a marvel of manipulatory skill. The original is, as is well known, a portrait of rare distinctive force ; but what we are concerned with at present is rather the thoroughly adequate way which M. Gaillard has rendered it. Tho face, if one part may be selected where all are so admirable, is a marvel of art. "Amateurs of Painting," engraved by M. Flameng, after Meissonier, is a pleasing example of another kind, though the plate does not look so fresh. We also have two very charming heads after Greuze, both by Mr. Morse. The originals are in the collection of Lord Dudley. Of the other illustrations which number twenty in all, we may mention Rembrandt's " Frame-maker," " The Oath of Vargas," by M. Gallait, and "Jasper Schado von Westman," after Frank Hals, a painter of whom, as Mr. Stephens appropriately reminds us, our National Collection contains no example.—Pictures by William Etty, with Descriptions, and Biographical Sketch of the Painter. By W. Cosmo Monkhouse. (Virtue and Spalding.) The taste of the day has taken a different direction from the art in which Etty excelled, though his pictures have technical merits which will probably keep up their value to a certain point. Nor can wo say that works of this kind are, in our judgment, advantageously represented by engravings. Etty's flesh-tints were singularly successful results of diligent study, and when we miss them we miss the chief attraction of his work ; nor does all the grace of his drawing compen- sate for tho loss. About Mr. Monkhouse's part of the work there can be but one opinion. His life of the painter is exactly what a biographi- cal sketch should be, and ho has found in Etty, whose character was one of remarkable simplicity and integrity, an excellent subject. At the same time, his essay on the art of Etty is full of sound and judicious criticism.—The Christian Year appears in a handsome octavo, pub- lished by Messrs. Cassell and Co., copiously illustrated. The portrait which serves as a frontispiece seems to us but indifferently exe- cuted, nor can we admire all the figure illustrations, but many of the landscapes are good, and the ornamental borders fre- quently elegant and full of fancy, though hardly of the type which is best suited to the ecclesiastical character of the book. How strange it seems when we read "the Advertisement to the Original Edition," to find Keble speaking of the "soothing tendencies of the Prayer-book, which," he goes on to say, " it is tho chief purpose of these volumes to exhibit." The fierce controversies which rage round the Prayer-book now, controversies of which the poet lived to see the beginning, almost turn the expression into an irony.—Songs of our Youth, by the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman" (Daldy, Isbistor, and Co.), is a volume that ought to be generally acceptable. The author is well known as the writer of graceful and tender verse, and she has added' to her own compositions some by Shelley, Bryant, Browning, &c. Each song is set to music,—in many cases by the authoress herself. The popularity of songs is a thing on which it is particularly difficult to calculate. We hope that its somewhat capricious choice may light on this volume.— Paws and Claws, being True Stories of Clever Creatures, Tame and Wild, by One of the Authors of "Poems Written for a Child " (Cassell and Co.), will amuse the young readers for whom it is meant both by its pictures and letterpress. The author travels into regions of animal life which the ordinary tellers of anecdotes do not visit, telling us about mice, partridges, moor-hens, and other creatures which we too commonly regard as meant for nothing but to bo taken and destroyed. We hope that the class of books of which this is an excellent specimen will do something to check the insane love of slaughter which characterises Englishmen. No more salutary present could be imagined.—Ernest Griset's Funny Picture- Book (W. P. Nimmo) well deserves its name. The fan is not of exactly the English sort, but still it should bo highly appreciated. The verses, too, are sufficiently comic, though wo object to the name of the "little Billie" of Thackeray's immortal song being made to serve for a production so inferior as Tho Three Youthful Mariners." The other throe pieces are "A Funny Book about the Ashantees," " The Brothers Bold ; their Marvellous Adventures in Central Africa," and "A Book of Funny Beasts." Of the same class, and from the same publisher, we have The Funny Little Darkies, The Camp-town Races (an "Ethiopian" meloly with proper accompaniment), and "Hero wo are Again," wherein the youngsters may repeat their induction of the clown and his confreres at the pantomime. —Mr. Nimmo also sends us a picture-book of the serious kind, Beautiful Pictures for the Young.--Of the yearly publications of magazines which it is now the fashion to call "Christmas Annuals" or "Christmas volumes," wo may mention Routledge's Boy's Annual (Rontledge) and Aunt Judy's Christmas Volume (Bell and Sons). This latter is made of special interest by an "In Membriam " notice of its late editor, Mrs. Alfred Gatty, whose singular genius for pleasing and instructing the young made Aunt Judy's Magazine a model of its kind.—Chatterbox and Sunday Reading for the Young (W. W. Gardner) are old-established favourites, which it is not necessary to do more than mention. From the same publisher, we have also The Children's Prize. All these are edited by the Rev. J. Erskine Clarke.—Routledge's Christmas Annual consists of a story called "The Dead Tryst," by Mr. James Grant, a novelist who never fails to interest.—Like a Snowball ; a Story of Seven Links in a Chain, is the Christmas number of the Gentleman's Magazine, and The Bent Bow that of the Quiver (Cassell and Co.)—A Boy's Kingdom ; or, Five Years in a Cave (Sceleys). Here the apparently inexhaustible mine of the " Robinson Crusoe "genus of story-books is explored. A wilful boy determines to go and goes to sea, and retributive justice following quick on his heels, is thrown on a desert island. For a time he is as miserable as a boy under such circumstances would probably be. And indeed the author never outrages our sense of the probable by heaping upon his hero the impossible conveniences which we find in such stories as "The Swiss Family Robinson." But he finds that a solitary figure is apt to grow tiresome, and ho has to contrive that ho should have companions. And hero, if there has been any want of the improbable, the deficiency is amply made up. For first a baby comes ashore in a basket, and then comes a woman to nurse him. But what do boys care about improbabilities? This is a very readable tale, which does not fail to insinuate an excellent moral.—The Young Brahmin's Story; or, the Confessions of Bilzioi Lat By Auguste Clardon, late Missionary in Ajmere. Translated by Sarah S. N. Clarke. (Oliphant.) This is a book of unusual ability. The narrator of the story is the son of a small proprietor, whom the greed of one of the native usurers has stripped of his possessions. Under the pressure of necessity he takes service with his uncle, the priest of a groat temple in one of the "Protected States" of Hindoostan. Tho temple life is described with much graphic power, as are the characters of the priest and of the young Rajah. We wish that there were more Mission- aries capable of writing such a book.—The Stout Heart, by Mrs. Salo Barker (Rontledge), is a tale of adventure of which the scene is chiefly laid in India. George Rolleston, having been disinherited through the arts of a step-mother, keeps up "a stout heart" wherever he goes ; makes friends, especially one friend of a peculiarly interesting kind, and fate intervening at the right time to take out of the way the inter- loper, comes to his own again, with much glory and experience of the world, which he could scarcely have gained if "his own" had always been his.— What Might Have Been Expected, by Frank R. Stockton (Rontledge), will present an attractive change for readers of ordinary tale-books, in its graphic descriptions of American country life. A. young lad and his sister undertake to provide for an old negro woman, whom, being worn-out and helpless, it is proposed to trans- port to the almshouse. The idea of earning money is not one that • presents itself very soon to the English mind, at least, in the sons of families comfortably off. The business energy of Harry Loudon and his sister Kate will be, accordingly, somewhat surprising. Picking sumac-loaves, shooting wild turkeys, carrying wood, and finally, making a telegraph line, are among the contrivances of our young friends for raising money. It must not bo supposed that the writer makes things too easy for them. On the contrary, they meet with many disappoint- ments, the difficulty of managing their protegee being one of them. And if they end with a considerable balance in their favour, it is from good luck rather than from merit.—The Poor Clerk and his Crooked Sixpence, by George E. Sargent (Religious Tract Society), is a didactic story, told in the character of a " crooked sixpence," which passes through various hands, and bases an edifying narrative upon the fact. Of the same character, as being indeed the work of the same pen, and proceeding from the same Society, we have An Old Sailor's Story, and Three Christmas Eves, by the Author of " The Cottage on the Shore," a really affecting story of the loyal attachment with which a son clings to the father who has ill-treated and deserted him.—The Story of Elsie Marcel, translated from the French of Madame I. do Lambert (Nimmo), tells us how a young girl, doomed to lifelong imprisonment by hopeless lameness, passes from impatience to resignation, and from resignation to happiness, under the influence of good teaching and good examples. —Max Wild, 6T. (Nimmo), is a volume containing (stories both of German origin and both fresh and interesting ; the second, " Christfrid's First Journey," is the bettor of the two. The young scholar's struggle for existence is a picture which our somewhat self-indulgent English youth may advantageously study.—We can only mention the names of A Year at School, by Tom Brown (Rout- ledge), and Lizzie Hepburn (Nelson).—The Town Crier, by Florence Montgomery (Bentley), is a Christmas Story-book for Young Children," and is admirably adapted for its purpose. The story is told with per- fect simplicity, and the little girl whose story it tells is as natural a character as possible.
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