The Talking Oak, by Frederick Laagbridge (Eyre and Spottis-
woode), is a. pretty book, inside and out. The children are charmingly pictured, and the verses very nice jingles indeed, as, e.g. :—
" Out we are sallying, jolly as sand-boys,
Bent on discovering ocean and land, boys ; First from the wonderful isle of the Jingoes, Back we'll bring Polar bears, figs, and flamingoes."
We have only to wish that there was more of it. —From the same publishers we get Hymns for Children, by Sarah Wilson. The music is furnished by Sir Arthur Sullivan, and the illustrations by Jane M. Dealy and Fred. Marriott. The hymns, twelve in number, are simple, and suited for their purpose ; and the illus- trations are fairly good, the smaller things being decidedly the best.
Miss Kate Greenaway has certainly made one of her most suc- cessful efforts in her illustration of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, by Robert Browning (Eoutledge and Sons). It would not be easy to find a poem which lent itself so completely to the style in which her pencil is happiest; nor do we know of another pencil which could do as much justice to the picturesque humour of Browning's work. The perplexed councillors, the disconsolate housewives looking at their mangled cheeses, the mother comforting her bitten baby, the crowd of indignant citizens swarming up to remonstrate with the Mayor and Corporation, and, best of all, the children, in every variety of picturesque dress and attitude, hurrying after the sound of the magic pipe, are nothing less than admirable. The double-page illustration of pp. 54-55, to the words,— "With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,"
is perhaps the best, if we have to make a choice of the whole series.
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