STORIES FOR CHILDREN.•

So much has been said in these columns of the excessive luxury of the children's books written for the rising generation, that it is something to find a whole mass of stories which are free from that objection. None of the books before us are written for grown-up children. There are passages in some of them, indeed, which may be appreciated by all ages, but this cannot be called a fault. We think it is hardly right to lose sight of the fact that when older people approve of childish literature, they do so rather from a critical point of view than from a sense of personal enjoyment. The case of Alice is, no doubt, an exception, but though grown people are better able than children to enter into that wonderful production, it is by no means thrown away upon children. With regard to other books, grown people can only act as tasters. They do not say "such and such a story is good," but " the children

will like it." These prophecies are not always fulfilled, and the taste which is thus exercised is not always a correct one. The best judge of hock or claret may fail to pick out the particular brand of elderberry wine which is most esteemed at the early Sunday dinner. It sometimes happens that the stories which seem dull and flat to older people are seized on with avidity by children ; the feeble jokes command a heartier laughter than is allotted to true sallies of wit, and moral remarks which verge upon platitudes are treated with unfeigned veneration. This is naturally a subject of regret to critical parents, who are filled with horrible misgivings as to the future tastes of their offspring. What if my boy was to read Tupper? may be the question occurring to many minds. Yet, perhaps it is by a kind provision of nature that platitudes are taken early in life, like the measles, and manhood is preserved from an attack which is so likely to prove fatal.

There is an excess of moralizing in some of the stories with which we are now dealing. The last book on our list, which is a fairly written account of seaside rambles, is perhaps the greatest offender. We have in it a boy of seventeen making the follow- ing speech to a younger companion:-

"' Nay, Walter,' observed his cousin, ' you think it dull because you know nothing of it; just as the savage despises a lump of gold from his ignorance of its value. Bat, surely, it is not dull to examine the habits of the beautiful winged birds,—their little loves and quarrels, their ingeniously-built nests, their contrivances for flight, their various powers of song ; or the manners and customs of the finny populace of ocean, • Good Little Hearts. By Aunt Fanny, author of " Nightcaps." 4 vols. Edinburgh : Edmonston and Douglas.

Captain Wolf, and other Sketches of Animal Biography. By the Author of "Under the Lime Trees," &c. London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday.

The Schoolboy Baronet. By the Hon. Mrs. Greene. London: F. Warne and Co. Erling the Bold. By R. H. Ballantyne. London : Nisbet.

Rosamond Pane. By H. and C. Lee. London: Griffith and Ferran.

Walter at the Seaside. London: T. Nelson and Sons.

from the warm-blooded and gentle, though gigantic whale, down to the little invisible animalcule that builds up the white coral reefs and radiant coral islands ; or the numerous members of the great animal world, so different in their powers and faculties, so distinctive in their structure, so glorious in their aspect, yet all bearing eloquent witness to the wisdom and goodness and omnipotence of their Creator. No, Walter ; don't call natural history, or any other science—nay, nor any art either—dull because to one who understands and reflects, who knows or wishes to know, it is full of the highest interest, and more attractive than any romance.'"

Who does not see here that the author is conveying the moral of his book through the medium of one of his characters ? Yet this

fatal blot, as it appears to the critic, will, no doubt, escape the attention of childhood. Again, in the same book, some long Latin

names are used. " Stop," says Walter, " let me repeat those names. I will try to remember them." As it is clear that a boy would have forgotten the names two minutes after he heard them,

whether he repeated them or not, the fact that this is a device for making the reader try to remember them becomes rather too obvious. In like manner, the series called Good Little hearts, by the'author of the Six Nightcaps, keeps up a running fire of moral

asides to its readers. Here, indeed, there is no disguise. The

writer's object is to teach as well as to amuse, and she makes no secret of it. She sets herself up as a children's lecturer, and we must say that they listen to her readily. Her stories are of the very simplest order, the incidents almost too slight to deserve the name, the characters sketched in with the fewest possible touches. Yet there is something about her books which makes amends for

any excess of moralizing and any want of definite interest. The heartiness of her love for children, the warmth with which she enters into all their scrapes and games and amusing little ways, the manner in which she puts herself forward as aunt to the whole

race, recommend her strongly to parental confidence. We do not think her present series will be as popular as its predecessor. For one thing the volumes are smaller, and there are not so many of them. But, in addition to this, there is only one real story in each volume. There was much greater variety in the Nightcaps. Once or twice,

too, we seem to detect a resemblance between the new characters and those in the other series. Their names are changed, but not their natures. A very delicious little boy, called Otie, is, however, a new creation. He was at a Charity Bazaar got up for the benefit of the poor, and presided over by some other children. Amongst other things sold at this bazaar were refreshments, and little Otie thought he should like some ice-cream. He was told that he must give five cents for a saucerful, and accordingly he gave the five cents, eat the ice, and then asked for his five cents again. "But you paid the five cents for your ice-cream," he was told. " Oh no !" he replied, with a shake of his little head, " I only gave you the five cents while I eat my ice-cream." 1Ve do not suppose such a story as this will give children a false idea of political economy. Aunt Fanny would deeply regret it if any such effect was produced by her writings.

As a general rule, she is evidently correct in her teaching.

Occasionally, indeed, she is led to inculcate a moral by means of the story itself, a practice which is not quite so open and honest as her usual method. But if this is a fault, another book on our list is much more to blame. The Schoolboy Baronet has been

written, as its preface tells us, with a view of setting before boys while still young "the secret but dangerous working of that false pride which leads so many of them afterwards into trouble and difficulties of various kinds." The first part of the story is well adapted to this object. The stuck-up young cub who, because he happens to have inherited a title, thinks he is better than all the rest of the world, will naturally be odious to all classes of readers.

But when this boy goes up to his little cousin's room, intending to shoot a dog, and fancies that he has shot his cousin, when he takes

to flight, hides in a railway-waggon, breaks his leg in a railway accident, and has to be nursed and supported by a poor family in a town of the Black Country, we find too great a disparity between the offence and the punishment. The whole story is told in such a way as to excite a great deal of interest, but it is not always interest of the right kind. At times it is too painful; at others, it is too evidently worked up with a view to effect.

The remaining stories with which we have to treat are almost

wholly free from this moralizing tendency. Once Mr. Ballantyne, the author of Erling the Bold—a vigorous, but far too lengthy description of the life of the old Norsemen—is betrayed into a re- mark that the Norse vikings are not to be gauged by the present

legal standard. " While we do not for a moment," he says, speak- ing of the sea kings, " pretend to justify their doings, we think it right to point out that there must necessarily have been a wide difference between their spirits and feelings, and the spirits and feelings of modern pirates, who know that they are deliberately

setting at defiance the laws of both God and man." We are in- clined to hope that this lesson may not be needed, and that the boys who read Mr. Ballantyne's book will not think that there are any men in the present day to whom such feats as those done by his heroes are possible. As his story is given up to stirring scenes, to fights, pursuits, sieges, and every variety of adventures, we might be tempted to regret the absence of any moral. If boys were to be persuaded that pirates had the most exciting wolf- hunts and the chance of being dragged down a rapid by a salmon they had speared, that their lives were made up of exploits, and that on being overwhelmed by numbers they were taken up to the Walhalla, there is no saying what would be the consequences. We turn away in some trepidation to a capital volume of stories about animals. " Captain Wolf " is the tale which gives its name to the book, but in addi- tion to this, we have the adventures of a colony of beavers, the life of a dog in a poor home and a rich one, and accounts of a fox, a cock, a family of rats, and a donkey. None of our former objec- tions apply to any of these stories. It is true that in most of them poetical justice is dealt out, but then it is always according to the deserts of its recipients. If the wolf is killed after a career of violence, it had just ventured up to some houses and was trying to carry off a child when the alarm was given. If the fox falls a prey to the hounds and " the rabbits are avenged," that is a matter of con- stant occurrence during the hunting season. We may think that the beavers are treated a little too severely for not keeping watch, and that the cock ought not to have fallen a prey to the polecat. But we must admit that all this is very naturally managed. If we some- times detect a likeness between one of the animals and a man, that is not the fault of the author. There is no arriere pens& to be discovered, no attempt to draw subtle analogies and to afford a handle for indirect instruction. The animals of this book are fairly and legitimately the animals of real life, and though they talk and think in English, though they reason and laugh like human beings, they never step out of their true characters. One other book remains, R9sain9nd Flute, a story of James H.'s boy- hood. In this, however, there is not much to notice. We suppose all children are on the Stuart side, and will therefore be interested in hearing how the last of the Stuart Kings made his first escape from St. James's Palace during the early period of the Great Rebellion. The heroine of the story acts the principal part in this event, which is transacted under cover of a game of hide and seek. The royal prisoner affects to hide in the garden, but really borrows a key from the gardener, and gets away through a private door while his companions are looking for him. The idea reflects credit on the ingenuity of the young lady who devised it.