CURRENT LITERATURE.
CHRISTMAS BOOKS, Ere.
Edinburgh. Picturesque Notes, by Robert Louis Stevenson. With Etchings, from Drawings by S. Bough, R.S.A., and W. C. Lockhart, R.S.A. ; and Engravings on wood. (Seeleys.)—This is a very attractivo volume. The " notes " and illustrations are republished from the Portfolio, in which they have appeared during the course of the- current year. Mr. Stevenson always puts what he has to say in a fresh and original way. Nothing could be better of its kind than his talk about Edinburgh, past and present, pleasantly dashed, as it is, with both humour and pathos, and fully deserving the epithet " picturesque." As for the illustrations, the names of the artists (for the loss of one of whom we must express, in passing, our regret) and the fame of Mons_ A. Brunet-Debaines guarantee them. Among the full-page etchings we may mention the "View from Calton Hill," and among the vig- nettes " Cowfeeder Row."—Wo welcome, among the many good results of the 'Challenger' Expedition, a handsome volume full of various attractions,—At Anchor; a Narrative of Experiences Afloat and Ashore during the Voyage of II.M.S. Challenger.' By John James Wild, Ph.D.; with Illustrations by the Author. (Marcus Ward.) Mr. Wild was attached to the scientific staff of the expedition, and he makes occasional references, but of a popular kind, to his work. For the meet part, his observations are such as an ordinary traveller of the intelligent kind, with unusual opportunities for getting about the world, and with a gift of telling his experiences pleasantly, might make. The illustrations consist of thirteen coloured plates. The landscapes among these do not strike us as being, on the whole, very happy. Far better are numbers seven and eight, giving representations of the inhabitants of two Pacific islands (the description of those natives in the text is remarkably interesting). In the landscapes the colour does not produce a good effect, and rather spoils than sets off the drawing. The "type etchings," which are very numerous, are more pleasing. These form a really excellent body of illus- trations. Altogether, this is a very attractive and interesting book.— Pictures and Legends from Normandy and Brittany. By Thomas and Katharine Macquoid. (Chatto and Windus.) This is a book full of pretty pictures and pleasant reading. On a slight thread of narrative of travel, interrupted here and there with a brief description, wo have a number of country legends, most of them of the wild and somewhat gloomy character that seems to suit the Celtic temperament. The travellers seem to have had good-fortune in mooting with just the people who were able and willing to tell them these old-world stories. Very carious people they sometimes were, as, for instance, the old beggar, who was the "rhapsodist" of the Ferry of Carnoet. Most of the stories will probably be new to most readers, but one or two are very well known. " The Miller and his Lord," for instance, bears a very close resemblance to "Big and Little Claus," in the "German Fairy-Tales." Of the rest, "The Rocking-Stone of Tregune " is as good as any. Among the illustrations, we may mention "Old Houses, Pont Audemer," "The Bridge, Auray."— Dick Sands : the Boy Captain, by Jules Verne, translated by Ellen E. Frewer. (Sampson Low and Co.) 31. Verne shows no sign of falling-off in the variety of his incidents and the liveliness of his imagination. His adventurers make, perhaps, the most stupendous mistake that has ever been made in the history of travel, for they imagine themselves to be in South America when they are really in Africa, and it is only by seeing giraffes and being bitten by tsetse flies that they learn the truth. Equally astonishing is the success of the villain in the story, who throws the ship out of her course by secreting a lump of iron near the compass, gets her round Cape Horn (he is nothing but the cook it should be said) without anybody knowing, and finally meets his confederate on the very point of the shore where she goes ashore and breaks up. The dog, "Dingo," is an equally surprising marvel in his way. Between them the emotion of wonder is exhausted, so that when an African King dies of spontaneous combustion we are quite unmoved, and only wonder that the disease is not epidemic among the pombe-loving monarchs of that land. The comic element is supplied by a short-sighted naturalist, who cares for nothing in the world but " hexapods," a subject on which M. Verne shows himself as well informed as usual. But a few sur- prises are not out of place in a Christmas book, and it must be allowed that M. Verne's " sensations " can never be censured for anything but improbability.— Uncle Joe's Stories, by E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen, :M.P. (Routledge.) We seem to remember that Mr. Ku atchbull-Hugessen generally during the course of the year thinks that he will not write a Christmas-book, and ends by writing it. In the present condition of the Liberal party, it is perhaps as well that he should not cut himself off from being useful to his fellow-men. Uncle Joe is a teller of rho- domontade stories, who has never been further than to the other side of -the Channel ,but who makes himself the hero of extraordinary adventures. The first of these" stories "is conceived in this spirit. "Uncle Joe" nar- rates a wonderful escape that he had from a hostile band of Indians, and is narrative is a pleasant caricature of the marvellous tales which are sometimes told of such adventures. We should say, indeed, that there is too much caricature and persiflage about these stories. We do not think that young people like it as well as their elders. They rather prefer to take things an grand sc-rieux, and when they listen to stories about giants, and dwarfs, and fairies, prefer that he who tells the tale should do it without his tongue in his cheek. Apart from this, "Uncle Joe's Tales" are sufficiently clever and amusing.—Tales of Three Centuries, translated from the French of Madame Guizot de Witt. (Religious Tract Society.) The three tales are "A Huguenot
Family," "The Pilgrim Father," and " The Desert," this last being the story of Antoine Court, the Huguenot preacher. The first and second "centuries," by the way, overlap each other, for M. du Plessis, who is the principal character in the first, died in 1625, and the 'Mayflower' sailed in 1620. The stories are told with both vivacity and pathos, and there is a well-contrived
admixture of personal interest with historical fact.—Nestleton Magna:
a Story of Yorkshire Methodism, by J. Jackson Wray (Cassell and Co.), has reached an" eleventh thonsand."—Looking Back: a Memory of Two Lives, by Mary E. Shipley. (Seeleys.) The " two lives "which are here recorded are contrasted with a skill and feeling which make an effective picture. The grandfather, the object of Dorothy's childish
love, dying, after an honoured and useful life, in the fullness of days,
and when his work was finished, and the lover and husband, who is cut off just when life is opening out to him its best opportunities and truest happiness, are set side by side in a way that is full of significance.
The story has the form of an autobiography, a form which is well sup- ported. Nothing could be more simply natural than the language in which Theodora describes her experiences as a child and as a woman. "Aunt Monica" is, perhaps, too uniformly disagree- able, and the young lady herself carries her submission too far. Why should she not have gone out as a nurse to the Crimea, when she so wished it, being twenty-four years of ago,
and out of tutelage 7—Bible Biographies; or, Studies from the Old Testament, by the Rev. W. C. Settlewood, M.A. (Marcus Ward), contains the lives of sixteen Old-Testament characters, which seems carefully and fairly written.—Memorable Battles in English History, with Lives of the Commanders, by W. H. Davenport Adams, 2 vols. (Griffith and
Ferran.) This is a new edition, but, the author tells us, so enlarged and generally altered as to be practically a new book. The plan is to tell the story of a great battle in detail, accompanying it, when it is possible, with a plan ; and then to sketch the life of the General who fought it, thus bringing in, in many cases, actions of less importance. So
we have an account of Cressy, and following it a biography of the Black Prince, which, of course, includes Poitiers. The first great battle on the list is that of " Hastings, or Senlac," and here "placuit victa cause," for it is followed by a biography of " Harold, the last of the old English Kings." In this volume "Lewes and Simon de Montfort," "Agincourt and Henry V.," " Oliver Cromwell and Marston Moor, Naseby, Dunbar, and Worcester," are contained. In the second, we have " Blenheim and Marlborough," "Plessey and Lord Clive," "The Heights of Abraham and Wolfe," "Waterloo and Wellington," "The Battle of Inkermann and the Siege of Delhi." It is curious that though in these last two struggles, great and critical as they were, many men deserved well of their country, no one could be chosen out as the subject of an appropriate biography. The materials for these two volumes have been carefully collected, and the best authorities consulted, while the narrative is spirited, vigorous, and clear.—The Mariners of England (The Edinburgh Publishing Company,), by the same author, relates on a smaller scale the achievements of the sister-service, begin- ning with the battle of Slugs and carrying down the history to the wreck of the' Magwra.' Perhaps it would have been well if some more of the victories of peace had been included, the wreck of the ' Birkenhead,' for instance, which should never be left out of a catalogue of heroic deeds by sea.—Decisive Events in History. By Thomas Archer. (Cassell and Co.) Mr. Archer selects sixteen "events," beginning with the battle of Marathon, and ending with the proclamation at Versailles of King William of Prussia as Emperor of Germany. But these events are not all military. The landing of St. Augustine in Britain (surely it should be England), "John signing Magna Charts," and "Luther nailing up his Theses," supply subjects which are not less important than the most decisive battles. We have not examined Mr. Archer's facts throughout, but we see that he speaks of the "younger Scipio" as having van- quished Hannibal at Zama. Whatever he may mean, this is mis'eading- The "younger Scipio" known to history, was the adopted grandson of the vanquisher of Hannibal. He speaks, too, of Varro and Pauline at Cannae as "proconsuls." There is some spirit in the illustrations, but the present taste demands more realism.—Stories from the History of Rome, by Mrs. Beesly (Macmillan), is a little book, unadorned indeed by pictures, but of elegant appearance, and such as should please the more intelligent class of young readers. Mrs. Beesly tells us the legends, mythical and semi-historical, of Rome, the preface rightly disposing of the very narrow fiction that these legends are not true. They are not true to fact, but they are to nature ; and they certainly "helped to create in Romans those virtues which they professed to record." Dr. Arnold interspersed his history -with such legends. In the volume before us, they are told in a simple and less poetical form, but in a pleasing and interesting way.—We have received an edition of Paul and Virginia, with an original Memoir of the author. (Routledge.) The memoir, but not through any fault of its own, scarcely increases our relish for the book. Bernardin do St. Pierre, as it is delicately put by the writer, "possessed factitious rather than practical virtue," and a closer acquaintance with him does not make us more inclined to appreciate a sentiment which already rings false. The illustrations are numerous, but they are not of much morit. Virginia, as she is sometimes represented (e.g., at p. 90), is, to say the least, not attractive ; and her age varies most remarkably ; between pp. 53 and 55 there would seem to be an interval of about twenty years. —The Poetical Works of Robert Burns, edited, with Introductory Biography and Notes, by Charles Kent (Routledge), is a very handsome volume, furnished with all the appliances of notes, &c., that the reader could desire. The illustrations look as if they had done duty before. —Drawing-Room Amusements and Evening-Party Entertainments, by Professor Hoffman (Routledge), has a title which sufficiently describes its object. Some of the games may look dreary or silly, as one reads the description of them in cold-blood ; but given the circumstances which should attend them when they are played, they will certainly bear a different aspect. Of one thing at least no one can complain, an insufficient number for a choice. There are enough to amuse even a Jovian winter, which lasts we know not how many terrestrial years.— Any one who wants outdoor "amusement" may consult The Boy's Walton, by Ulick S. Burke, B.A. (Marcus Ward), though it is only the hardiest spirits who will entertain the idea. Though not so precise in its directions as some manuals of angling, it gives information about some things in an agreeable form.—Routtedge's Picture Natural History, by the Rev J. G. Wood (Routledge), is a very thick volume, in fact, three volumes in one, the three respectively dealing with " 3Iammalia," "Birds," "Fishes, Insects, &c." The number of pages is between 700 and 800, and that of illustrations nearly as groat. As for the range of subjects, we begin with the gorilla and end with the sea-urchin.—Chapters on Every-Day Things ; or, Histories and Marvels in Common Things, by the author of "Ten Steps in the Narrow Way" (Religious Tract Society), is an interesting book of natural and other history. The formation of coal, the growth of plants in common use, historical accounts of such events as "The Conquest of Mexico," and miscellaneous articles of many kinds, fill up a book of value. —Baby Bell, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich (Routledge), is a pretty little poem, telling, with pathetic verso, of the birth, the brief life, and the death of "little Bell." The illustrations are simple and fresh. In the same style, and from the same publisher, we have Excelsior, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. With these may be mentioned Thanatopsis, by William Cullen Bryant (Putnam, New York), a poem, first published nearly sixty years ago.—From Messrs. Routledge we also have Golden Light, being Scripture Histories for the Young, by H. W. Diilcken, Ph.D., illustrated with eighty en- gravings; and The Picture History of England, from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the present time, by the same anther, and similarly illustrated.—For the quite little ones there is The Large Picture Primer, with full-page pictures by Harrison Weir and others, and for those a shade older, Little Laddie's Picture-book, with eighty illustrations by Sir John Gilbert and others ; and Aunt Effie's Rhymes, set to music by T. Crampton, with thirty-six illustrations by Hablot K.Browne.— Of periodical volumes we have Mrs. Burton's Best Bedroom, &c. ; Books for the People, by the Author of "Jessica's First Prayer" (Religions Tract Society), a monthly periodical, which seems remark- ably well worth the penny which is asked for it ; The Child's Com- panion and Juvenile Instructor, and The Tract Magazine, these two being also published by the Religious Tract Society.
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