Morocco, its People and Places. By Edmondo do Amicis. (Cassell,
Potter, Galpin, and Co.)—Of Morocco, which, according to the author of this book, is "destined to be the great commercial high-road be- tween Europe and Central Africa," but little is known in this country. So near to us, that Signor de Amide travelled from Turin to Tangiers in ten days, Morocco is to most Englishmen less familiar than the lava lake of Kilauea or the geysers of Taupe. A few naval men, a sprinkling of officers from Gibraltar, and an occasional "globe-trotter,"—and the list of English visitants is well-nigh ex- hausted. The few books on the country are, for the most part, dull and uninteresting. Signor do Amicis's book is neither the one nor the other. From the instant that ho lands in Tangiers, on the broad back of an old mulatto, until he leaves again for Gibraltar, the interest and amusement never flag. From the minute description of the weird spectacle of the Aissawa, with its procession of livid and con- vulsed fanatics, with starting eyes, foaming mouths, and fever-stricken and epileptic faces, to the picturesque account of the triumphal entry into Fe; the interview with the Sultan, and the teetotal dinner-party at the Grand Vizier's, the book is uniformly bright and entertaining. The reader who desires to be posted up in the politics, trade, or finance of Morocco must seek elsewhere, but he who desires lively narrative and animated descriptions will find Signor do Amicis's book a storehouse of amusement. The author had the great advantage of travelling with the caravan of an Italian Embassy to the Sultan, and has made the best use of his exceptional opportunities for seeing the country, and for observing the humours of camp and caravan life. Signor do Amiois, by the way, tells us as a new story, that " yarn " concerning the Arab patient who expected to be cured by swallowing the written prescription given to him by a European doctor,—a story which has a well-established reputation for excellence. The illustra- tions are excellent, and as there is one on nearly every page, the pub- lishers cannot be accused of niggardliness. As is too often the ease with books published by Messrs. Cassell, Morocco bears no date, a custom which cannot be too strongly deprecated.—Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative of his Shipwreck, by Jane Porter,
with a preface by W. H. G. Kingston (Routledge), demands more than a passing notice. We, too, remember in our youth, though not removed by the half-century of which the editor speaks in his preface, this capital story. Anything more vraisemblabte was never written, —" Robinson Crime" only excepted—and it is strange that it has been allowed to remain so long in oblivion, for the younger generation, we take it, will scarcely have heard of it, Anyhow, Mr, Kingston has done well in bringing it out again. It is an idea that the present writer has long entertained ; and ho has, at least, the
satisfaction of seeing it well carried out. Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative is a substantial dish, of excellent flavour, which will
stay even, a voracious boy-reader's appetite for a while.—Gaspar,
the Gaucho : to Tale of the Gran Chaco. By Captain Mayne. Reid. (Routleclge.)—Captain Mayne Reid was one of the first, if not
the very first, of the writers who have delighted, in these later days, generations of boys and girls with tales of "moving accidents by field and flood." Nor has he ever been surpassed ; certainly not
when his foot is on his native heath, if that bold expression may be used for the South-American prairie. Gaspar, the Gaucho, is a capital story, though written in very strange English, abounding in quite impossible sentences, which we know not whether to attributer to the carelessness of the writer, or to something like total neglect of the proof-sheets. The scene is laid in the independent Indian country outside Paraguay, and the time is the dictatorship of Francia, who appears here as a profligate tyrant, very different from Mr.. Carlyle's hero. There are a German hunter-naturalist and his family- and two heroines—Spanish one, and Indian the other—a good rod-skin and a bad red-skin, and Gaspar, the superintending providence of the whole drama. The story is good, but the best characteristic of the book is the fullness of knowledge out of which the author evidently writes.—In New Granada : Heroes and Patriots. By William H. G. Kingston. (Nelson.)—Mr. Kingston is hardly so much at home in South America as he is in the backwoodrr or on the ocean-wave,; but he has at his command his usual fertility of imagination, and makes up a thrilling story, which boys and girls, will read with pleasure, not inquiring too curiously whether all the accessories'are in keeping with facts. Lot us hope that they will all be able to correct the orthography and punctuation of " Amicus cortus in re Moeda, cerniter," and possibly supply a better translation than, "A true friend is discovered in a doubtful matter."—Frank BiakFY the Trapper, by Mrs. Hardy (Samuel Tinsley), is written through- out in a very exaggerated fashion, which detracts very much from any amusement or interest which the story might excite- What can be the humour of such an absurd extravagance as the description of how an old gentleman at breakfast " de- voured a tub of Finnan haddocks, reduced a grouse pio to a hideous ruin, devoured at least a quarter of a goodly mutton, ham, polished off a basket of oatcake, and stowed away a plate of wheat-meal scones ? " That moans about twelve pounds of food. The same fault runs through the book.—Due as Steel. By Madame. Colomb. Translated by Henry Frith. (Routledge.)—This is a story in which we aro meant to learn how false often are hasty and super- ficial judgments. "Uncle Placido " is a superior official in a French Government office. His subordinates think him a dry, unfeeling creature. In truth, he is a hero. This might have been told more concisely with much advantage to the story, the fine points of which —and it has fine points, notably the closing scene—are somewhat obscured by the manner of telling.--The Roll of the Drum, and other Tales. By R. Mounteney Jophson. (Routledge.)—The first of those stories has appeared, and with a different title,. in, if we remember right, the Boys' Own Annual. We are- glad to see that really good tales are sufficiently in request to call for republication ; but purchasers ought to be protected from buying the same article twice unwittingly. For the principal story itself, we have nothing but praise. It is very spirited, and not a little pathetic; nor are the others unworthy of it. If wo may venture a little criticism, is not the slang expression "blooming "- somewhat an anachronism, in a story of the time of the Crimean war ? —Lady Sybil's Choice : a Tale of the Crusades. By Emily Sarah. Holt. (Shaw.)—Miss Holt's heroine is Sybil T., Queen of Jerusalem, daughter of Amaury I., and her hero, Guy do Lusignan, Sybil's second husband. These two personages she seeks to rehabilitate, and in clu- ing so makes a quite readable story, which she tells in the person of a sister of Guy. With commendable accuracy she gives us a pedi- gree of the Royal Family of Jerusalem, and another of the House of Lusignan, both as difficult things to remember as one often sees and tells us which of her characters are historical and which imaginary.—Ladly Rosamond's Book ; or, Dawn,iitga of Light. The Stanton-Corbet Chronicles. By Lucy Ellen Guinness. (Shaw.)— Here, again, we have a reproduction of the antique. The " Book " is the diary of " Lady Rosamond," who, when we first read of her,- is a pupil in a nunnery, in the year 1529, and who ends her diary with an entry which records the dispersion of the Spanish Armada. The• chief subject is the movement towards Reformed principles which was at work in the third and fourth decades of the sixteenth century. The habits and thoughts of convent-life are reproduced with some skill, and the colour of the time is fairly well preserved.—The• Spanish Cavalier. By J. S. C. Abbott. (Ward, Look, & Co.)—An illustrated account of the expeditions of Ferdinand do Soto,. one of the leaders iu the conquest of Mexico, &a., who exhibited in a less degree than did some of the others the more repellent features of the adventurer's oharacter.--Dot, and Her Treasures. By L. T. Meade. (Shaw.)—This is a story of the life of the poor in London. " Dot " is a little lame girl, whose loving and unselfish temper wins to good the hearts of those who have to do• with her.--The Ragamuffins; or, the Arabs of Love Lane. By Jessie Sale Lloyd. (Shaw.)—In this story the scene is laid, not in London,. but in the outskirts of a great manufacturing town, which we may conjecture to be Bradford. Hero the patience and courage of a good woman win to better things a family which every one had despaired of. We hope that she got, at lout, part of her deserts when she married the good parson. The scene where the blaspheming drunkard is struck blind is founded, as the author tells us, on facts related to her by a clergyman on whose veracity she can rely. She- will bo interested in hearing that it has an exact parallel in fiction, in Mr. Warren's Diary of a Late Physician.—Robin's Carol, and what came of it. Edited by the Rev. C. Bullock. Wand and Heart Office.)—This is a record of the scheme for providing dinners 'annually for poor children, under the name of "robin dinners." During last year meals of this kind were dispensed to 10,000 -children. From the same firm we have received the Christmas- Box, a selection of tales and sketches suitable for fireside reading.—Brave Geordie : the Story of an English Boy. By Grace Stabbing. (Shaw.)—Here is a story founded, we sup- pose, on a real biography, In fact, it is, with differences, the life of the late George Moore. Miss Stabbing has man- aged her task of adapting very well, and has constructed a tale -which ought to bo both pleasant and profitable, The Hamiltons ; or, Dora's Choice. By Emily Brodie. (Shaw.)—The materials for this story are somewhat slender. A young lady chooses the worse of 'two lovers, happily is undeceived by the man's behaviour before it is -too late, though she has gone out to India to be married, and equally happily finds the old lover still ready to renew his offer.— G rea t Heart and His Little Friends, Tinie and Dot. By Cecil Clarke. (Partridge.)— We cannot pronounce this book to bo a success. Well meant it is, and not without some ability ; but the writer seems to have over-rated 'his power of giving interest to so slender a story, if, indeed, it can be -called a story at all.—Mustard and Cress ; their Adventures, Sc.,A by C. 0. Murray (Seeley, Jackson, and Co.), is a capitally told children's fairy-story, the illustrations to which aro clever and -amusing. The same publishers send us Daddy Swallow, a collect- tion of stories about birds, told by themselves, and appropriately illustrated.—In the same connection with the two preceding books, we may mention The Bird and Insects' Post Offce, by Robert Bloomfield (Griffith and Ferran); and Chit Chat, by Puck. 'Translated from the Swedish, by Albert Albery. (Sonnen- ,schein & Allen.)—The Old Ship; or, Better than Strength. By H. A. Ford. (W. Wells Gardiner.)—A sea-captain, disabled by an accident, settles in a country village, and by his unselfishness and -wisdom promotes its well-being, both moral and physical. This is a good story, quite natural and simply told. The tale of school life which is interwoven with it seems, to us, not so successful.—We can also speak well of Dicky and his Friends, by Adeline Sergeant (Macniven and Wallace), one of the many pathetic little tales of homeless, uncared-for children, which one hopes may tend to diminish their number, though it will not be given to every philanthropist to find so winsome a specimen of a child as little "Dicky." Still, one hopes there may yet be many a lad who will fight upwards from a bad beginning as heroically as his friend Stephen did, helped greatly thereto by the dear little boy, but also by the real kindness of the 41 friend " Michael, whose Quaker speech, as well as the infantile lispings of Dicky, are used so as to give a character of their own to the story. This, though pathetic to a high degree almost all through, brightens up at last when Dicky's dear old Tim took to poaching, and found it, as other oats have before and since, one of the most delight- ful of enjoyments.—We have a number of short stories, published at a very low price, by the Christian Knowledge Society, which seem very well adapted for Sunday-School prizes. Their titles are Silver Linings, by F. A. Owen; A. Great Treat, by F. Scarlett Potter; All's Well that Ends Well, by L. M. C. Campbell ; Poor Jack, 'by F. Scarlett Potter, and by the same author, Soon Enough, and Mab's Perils.—From the Religious Tract Society, we have a new edition of The Broken Looking-Glass; or, Dorothy Cope'e Recollections of Service, by Marie Louisa Charlesworth -(Seeleys) ; Hugh Templar's Motto, by Louisa Emily Dobr6e ; and Ben Boyce, the Beachman, and other Nautical Sketches.— Alice Bridge, of Norwich. By the Rev. A. Reed, B.A. (J. F. Shaw and Co.)—A story of the days of Charles I., mediocre in quality and -tedious in quantity. The author's modest object has been to help to revive the serious piety, the solf-denying virtue, and the noble public spirit for which our Puritan ancestors were so distinguished. We cannot bold out the slightest hope that this comprehensive aim is likely to be gratified by the publication of Alice Bridge, which, written -for the author's family, should have been confined to it.—All True. By Dr. Macaulay. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—Books of "Sunday reading for the young" aro generally books of Sunday penance for the young; but Dr. Macaulay has succeeded in avoiding the Scylla of dullness and the Charybdis of goody-goodinoss. All True, which con- tains records of adventures by sea and land, remarkable escapes and -deliverances, missionary enterprises, &e., is as entertaining as the majority of such books are depressing, and may be recommended as -a welcome present for children. The illustrations are above the average of those usually vouchsafed to us in children's books.— 'The Young Buglers. By G. A. Henty. (Griffith and Farran.)—This, althongh the story does not err on the side of probability, is a capital book for boys. It details the adventures of two brothers, Eton boys, who ran away from home, enlist as buglers, are cast away at sea, meet with various stirring adventures during the Peninsular war, gain commissions, are placed upon the staff of Lord Wellington, and arriving at the rank of colonels in the Army, marry and retire from the Service. An absconding clerk, who levantod with £80,000, and ruined the boys' father, is discovered as a banker and contractor at Bordeaux, and compelled by Lord Boresford to refund £100,000 to the heroes, under pain of being shot as a traitor. Eleven plans of battles and several illustrations by Mr. John Proctor accompany the book, which has the double merit of being it stirring story and a succinct and readable history of the operations in the Peninsula, from Talavera to Toulouse.— In Prison and Out. By Hosba Stratton. (Imbister.)—The illustra- tions to this book are good. The story is perhaps less successful than others from the same pen. Miss Strotton gives too much emphasis to the pathetic side of life. Pathos is agreeable, when pro- perly tempered, but otherwise objectionable. The moral inculcated is orthodox enough, but it is not a moral that children need trouble themselves about. A boy is wrongfully put in prison ; he becomes a burglar in consequence, and dies penitent. Few children who read this book will profit by the problem submitted to them, and it is not likely that our gaol system would benefit, if they did.—Mr. E. H. Knatohbull-Hugessen, M.P., gives us his usual Christmas volume, in Other Stories. Illustrated by Ernest Griset. (Routledge.)—The stories show the usual qualities which most readers of this kind of literature have already become familiar with in Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen's books. There is a good deal in them, of one kind or another ; plenty of fancy, though it is not very sprightly, and of humour, though it is somewhat coarse. Fairy princes, witches, giants, and the usual personages of such stories, play their parts in the accustomed way, and will afford, we do not doubt, plenty of entertainment to those who shall make their acquaintance. The "Other Stories" are "Prince idaraflete " (the "Cab-Driver of Murlingford " may be called, perhaps, the best thing in the volume), a "Legend of St. Dderfol," " Kimmelina and the Dwarf," "The History of the Cat" (an excellent homily against poaching, to which these amiable creatures are somewhat tee prone), and "The Grannies of Giddyhorn."—Spindle Stories. By Ascott R. Hope. Illustrated by C. 0. Murray. (Iloutlodge.) —The contents of this book justify its second title of "New Yarns Spun from Old Wool." Mr. Hope's treatment is surprisingly original, and makes these old stories assume a quite unfamiliar garb. Sometimes we wish, perhaps, that ha had left them alone; at other times, we are really charmed with his ingenuity. The " four-and-twenty black- birds," for instance, become the children of a King and Queen, who name their family after the letters of the alphabet. "Z " is a wicked person, -whose machinations cause them to be changed into birds, but are ultimately defeated by the love and wisdom of the Princess "Y." All this is very prettily and humorously told. Young people now-a- days like a flavour of satire and allusion in their fairy-tales, and they have it judiciously supplied hate —The Royal Umbrella, by Major Alfred F. P. Harcourt (Griffith and Farran), has this flavour consider- ably stronger. It did not strike us as more than moderately amusing. —Passing from fiction of various kinds to fact, we have to notice five volumes of " Nimmo's Library of Biography." (Nicamo.)— These are Great Achievements of Military Men, Statesmen, and others (including accounts of generals, statesmen, lawyers, and artists) ; Heroes of Invention and Discovery ; Lives and Discoveries of Famous Travellers; Eminent Philanthropists and Patriots, and Gallery of Notable Men and Women,—all of them compiled and arranged by the same editor, out of whose multiform descriptions of himself we may select that of " Editor of the Treasury of Modern Biography."—The Red Rose and the White. By W. H. Davenport Adams. The Great Civil War. By the same. (Routledge and Sons.)—Attempts to popularise history are a marked tendency of the day. We are not sure that such attempts are of much use. History is a serious matter, if it be anything, and a series of amusing stories, with all the uninteresting passages left out, is not history. At most, such stories only enable the reader to talk with an appearance of knowledge about persons and events of which he is really ignorant.- A full memory is one thing, an instructed mind is a very different thing. Mr. Adams has done his work tolerably well, from his own point of view.
We have received Messrs. De La Rue's very useful and pretty pocket-books, and also their diaries and calendars, of all shapes and sizes, for the waistcoat pocket, for the desk, for suspension on the wall, for the mantelpiece. They are all very neat, handsome, and efficient. A packet of Messrs. De La Rue's Christmas Cards has also been sent to us. These are unusually delicate and various, and those drawn on linen are new, and might easily be so pieced in as to make curtains—of a child's bed, for instance—quite a story-book in themselves. Messrs. Letts send us specimens of their large and small diaries, writing and blotting pads, &c., which are all excellent, and bound and got up in a substantial and business-like form.
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