There are few, if any, English periodicals that owe their
success so little to claptrap and so much to honest and careful management as the Leisure Hour (56 Paternoster Bow), the annual volume of which is again before us, and of which we can only say that, if possible, ib is an improvement upon its predecessors. While it would be absurd to conceive of its conductors being willing to gratify any unhealthy public taste, they never miss promptly dealing with such topics of the day as come within their range. Thus we have, in the volume before us, articles, the seasonableness of which is obvious, on "Electricity," • "Primary Education in France," Da Chailla's " Land of the Midnight Sun," "Lamarckism and Darwinism," "Sir Ckarles Lyell's Life and Works," and " Sir Garnet Wolseley." As usual, the "miscellaneous" essays are well worth perusal, notably a series by Mr. Blackley, on "English Thrift," and another, by Mr. Paxton Hood, bearing the somewhal affected title of " Kings of Laughter." The two leading stories, " By Hook or by Crook" and " Squire Lisle's Bequest," are excellent, and the illustrations of them at least as careful as any to be found within the range of magazine literature. That the con- ductors of this periodical think indulgence in laughter quite com- patible with the proper employment of leisure is amply proved by Mr. Cruikshank's clever illustrations of " Old Fables with New Faces." Our remarks on the annual volume of the Leisure Hour might almost be " taken as written "of that of the Sunday at Home (Religious Tract Society), although the fiction and the illustrations are scarcely up to the standard attained by the more secular maga- zine. We note with special pleasure the appearance of two series of useful articles, on "Roman Law as Illustrated in the New Testa- ment," and "Religions of the Ancient World." Most of the biogra- phies, too, in this volume are carefully written.
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