If the " Valentine " has in a large degree
gone out of fashion, the " Christmas Card" has more than supplied its place. There never was so rich a choice, nor was the taste displayed anything like so good. The proportion of silly and vulgar valentines was very large ; nothing more offensive than a little somewhat feeble sentiment is to be found in these more recent candidates for popular favour. Messrs. Raphael and Tuck have sent us a Christ. mas and New Year Card Catalogue, which is in itself a remarkable thing. It reaches to more than eighty pages, crowded all of them with lists of designs of every kind ; the prices affixed are, we should say, of the most modest kind. The accompanying samples • are far more numerous than we can pretend to notice. —We may name three calendars,—A Year's Sunshine, with very nice pictures, though the faces are not all as pretty as might be. One that we can praise without reserve is that entitled Noble Thoughts. The landscapes here are remarkably good, as are the figures in The Watteau Calendar.-----The drawings in For Queen and Country, especially that of the three soldiers who are discussing the news," more troops ordered out," are very spirited. --Our Armour for Every Day : a Devotional Book for Every Day, by Ida Scott Taylor, with illustrations by Frances Brundage and A. Noether, may also be singled out.—Toward the Light, by Helen Marion Burnside, illustrated by Frances Brundage, is of the same character and not inferior in merit.—Meadow Sweet, illustrated by Ellen Welby and A. Noether, is noticeably pretty.—We have also received a packet of Christmas Cards, given with the Little One's Own Christmas Book, certainly a very handsome gift; and specimens of the Oxford Series of Christmas Cards (Mowbray), which will please more serious tastes.
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