The Magic of Kindness; or, the Wondrous Story of the
Good Huan. By the Brothers Mayhew. (Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.)—A. boy whom early neglect has rendered a cripple is turned into a giant by the Spirit of Revenge, and resolves to glut his rage on those to whom he owed his former sufferings. Then his heart is softened by some sudden recollec- tion, and the Spirit of Kindness turns him into a dwarf. He now goes about with an olive branch in his hand, gaining a succession of peaceful triumphs. Such is the groundwork of this story, which would be better if it was not written with such a manifest purpose. What most disfigures it is the episode of the witches, where the Brothers Mayhew forget that they aro writing a children's book, and give us copious details of the confessions of tortured old women in the time of James I. and of the Pilgrim Fathers.
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