CURRENT LITERATURE.
CHRISTMAS BOOKS.
Messrs. Macmillan and Co. publish in a splendid volume Twelve Parables of our Lord, illustrated and illuminated. The illustrations are sketches taken in the East by H. R. Maniry ; and have a genuine Oriental tone and colour about them. If we had to choose those which please us most, we should say tho renderings of the "Marriage Supper" and "The Shepherd with the Lost Sheep." The illuminations are taken from a Venetian source, the "Brovario do Grimani." They are in parts, we must confess, somewhat too naturalistic to please us altogether; and we should be bold enough to prefer the very artistic design which Mr. Lewis Hind has furnished for the title-page. The same conventional treatment has been used with success in the ornamentation of the binding. Altogether, it is a very handsome book, and those who meditate a gift of the more splendid kind cannot do better than examine it.—Mr. Marks, with his Ridiculous Rhymes (Routledge), must be content to be reckoned a follower of the ingenious artist who gave us last year the Ridicula Rediviva. And he follows him with no little success. The colouring, perhaps, is less pleasing, and the ornament less artistic and elaborate, but the drawing is uniformly spirited, and often very humorous. The personification of "Humpty Dumpty," with his body of egg that has developed upwards and sideways into a cock chicken and down- wards into human legs, with the yolk pouring out through the fatal wound in his side, is exceedingly ingenious. The astonishment of the tailor who has shot his old sow instead of the carrion crow is well given. The lion who has beaten the unicorn "all round about the town " has a manly British look, and there is a fine humorous extravagance about Ba! Be! Black Sheep ;" " Old King Cole," too, is a good picture.—In .iEsop's Fables, illustrated by Ernest Griset (Cassell and Co.), there is an abundant store of humour. Such an illustration as that of "The Fox without a Tail " is a great test of the artist's power. The tailless one is delivering his harangue in the midst of some thirty of his fellows. His figure is admirable, but the variety of expression and attitude in the listen- ing crowd is a great study. Of humour with the satirical tinge in it, not unrepresented in Esop, the "Mountain in Labour" is a good specimen. Almost all are good, and not a few are admirable. The book, in fact, is as full of fun as it could be.—Beside such wealth of humour, Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse, with illustrations by Harrison Weir (Griffith and Ferran), shows to some disadvantage, but the draw- ings are pleasing and spirited.—A mare sober amusement will be afforded by Little Max, with fifteen etchings by Frank Geissler (Seeleys). "Little Max" is a young gentleman of seven, half-English, half-German by birth, who comes to live with his cousins, and whose proceedings are described in a very matter-of-fact tale—which the children, being very realistic in their tastes, will probably enjoy very much—and illustrated by some very pretty etchings. The design of these is always graceful, and the execution strikes us as being particu- larly good.—An old favourite, Mrs. S. C. Hall's Midsummer Ever a Fairy Tale (Hotten), appears in a new edition, with, we suppose, the same engravings which illustrated it when it appeared many years ago in the Art Journal. Mrs. Hall was fortunate enough to secure the help of such distinguished artists as Mediae, Stanfield, Creswick, and others. The tale itself, though it mixes real life and fairy life more than our maturer taste approves, is prettily and gracefully told.—Aunt Louisa's Nursery Favourite (Warne and Co.) gives us, with gorgeous pictures which will please the little ones, sundry well-known stories. Among these is "Diamonds and Toads," with its moral that "cross, unkind, words are as bad as toads and vipers." We must confess to having had so ill-regulated a mind as to be very sorry for the very pretty girl, ill-tempered as she was, whom we see lying dead in the last pic- ture. Might we suggest to Aunt Louisa that her prose is better than her verse?—The illustrations of the Child's Picture-Book of Domestic Animals (Routledge) are not all equally good. The ass and the pigs are admirable, but the goat has a very undomestic look indeed ; and here and there, as particularly in the cat, the colouring is somewhat crude. —There is more of a business character about Picture Natural History (Cassell and Co.), with its six hundred illustrations, which rely on their sober accuracy, not on colouring.—At the same time, we may mention another book which is put together with a serious intention, Picture Teaching, by Janet Byrne (Cassell and Co.)—We welcome three old favourites, the tales which childhood loved before it became so wise, and doubtless loves still, in Tom Thumb, Jack and the Beanstalk, and the Babes in the Wood (Routledge), illustrated with the usual splendour of colour.—The same publishers also send us, for the benefit of children who prefer the real, the Fancy-Dress Ball and the Juvenile Party.— Children who care more for reading than for pictures may have it in Old Nursery Tales and Popular Stories (Ward, Lock, and Tyler), though they will get some pretty pictures too.—For a "Sunday book" they may go to the Children of the Old Testament, by J. Erskine Clark, M.A. (Gardner). We should not ourselves have chosen as one of these subjects the forty-and-two children who are said to have mocked at Elisha, and to have been torn by she-bears ; but tastes differ.— We are beset, so to speak, with a great crowd of books intended for boys and girls. They all demand speedy notice, for they are all books of this season; and as, though illustrated, they rely for their attractions chiefly on their text, it is the more difficult to do them even approximate justice. It is not merely from selfish considerations that we object to their vast numbers ; we cannot but think that there is a great waste in the amount of time, and talent, and money that authors, publishers, public, and readers spend upon them. Is it a fact, or is it merely one of the delusions of the laudator teapot-is acti, that in old days, if we may so speak of a quarter of a century ago, boys and girls, not having a new story ready to their hand every day, did read something more of really classical English literature, whether of poetry or prose ? Tho present writer sees many boys, and he cannot help thinking that the tone of their reading has been lowered. Complaint, however, is useless, and there are some of these "boys' and girls' books " which we are really glad to see. One which ought to win for itself a permanent place in this region of literature is Mr. Henry Kingsley's Tales of Old Travel Renarrated (Macmillan). The idea is an excellent one, and very well carried out. Mr. Kingsley, indeed, is a writer on whom it is easy to make sharp criticisms. The frolic of his style, which is absolutely inimitable, which makes one recognize his handiwork by a single sentence, sometimes passes into a sort of recklessness. What can he mean, for instance, when he says that a certain Jesuit father, in identifying the " chigger," a certain tropical insect, with one of the plagues of Egypt, was defending "the Mosaic cos- mogony "? What have the plagues of Egypt to do with the cosmogony ? But for a humour and vivacity that never flag, for power of graphic descrip- tion, and for an eminent quality of "readableness," he has very few equals. And here he has a subject which not only has a wonderful interest of its own, but also suits him exactly. Let any one look, for instance, at "The Adventures of Andrew Battel," where Mr. Kingsley has made what was probably a tedious story into a romance, or something better. No romance, indeed, could venture on such a marvel as that terrible nation of can- nibals, the Gages, who buried all their offspring alive, and filled up their number with the children of conquered tribes, that there might be no family ties or human feeling among them. "The Wanderings of a Capuchin," again, and " Winter at Spitzbergen," are capital stories. But we might single out all for the same praise. Grown-up people should know that they will like the book as well, probably even better, than the young ones.—Another writer, well known for his own sake, and for the sake of one whose name he bears, the Rev. H. C. Adams, gives us " Tales upon Texts " (Routledge). We felt disposed to cavil at the title, but the tales are told so naturally, and are so free from any appearance of being strained to snit a purpose, that we accept it. Every one illustrates the working of some high quality or some dangerous fault, and a few Scripture words are used to point the moral. In one instance, at least, the tale of "Horace Lyndsay," the narrative corrects very admirably the common misreading of a passage, that which refers to Esau finding no place of repentance. If we have any fault to find, it is with the way in which fiction is used. Some of the stories are tree, or partly true, we are told, some are wholly fictitious. Now, fiction is quite legitimate in the story of "The Cornish Miner," for instance, where a man sacrifices his life for a rival, but it scarcely seems so in such a one as that of " The Deserted Island." A man is " marooned," i.e., pat on shore ; a passenger volunteers to accompany him, and contrives to got also a supply of provisions, seeds, &c. Years after, a partyprocuring water for their ship is left, owing to a sudden hurricane, on the same island. When in despair of finding food, they discover fruit-trees, vegetables, even sheep. Then it tarns out that the officer in command is the son of the self-devoted passenger, who, by the way, turns up at last to take his son off. Now, here the whole value of the story depends on the truth of the coincidences. But most of the stories are very good and very well told. —Mr. W. H. G. Kingston, a name familiar to most boy readers, writes the history of John Deane of Nottingham (Griffith and Ferran), a tale of the days of William III. and Queen Anne, and founded on fact. The first part of the story is somewhat tame ; Mr. Kingston is more at home on the sea ; when he gets his hero there, the story is all that could be desired. Boys pick up so much of what little history they know from each books as these, that we shall be excused for remarking that the Duke of Berwick was the son, not of Charles II., but of James IL— in Adrift in a Boat (Hodder and Stoughton), Mr. Kingston has a subject after his own heart, and makes a pretty little story out of it.—We may mention here the republication, in illustrated editions, of three other works of the same author, a Voyage round the World, 31y First Voyage to Southern Seas, and Old Jack (Nelson and Sons), all of them described as " books for boys," and all of them, we believe, well known as *inch. Tales of the IVhite Cockade, by Barbara Hutton (Griffith and Ferran), at least have a subject which never wearies. They are not fascinating enough to turn their readers into Jacobites. What a strange thing, by the way, is this sentiment that hangs about the Stuarts, who were in truth a very matter-of-fact race. — Theodora, by Emilia Marryat Norris (Griffith and Ferran), is "a tale for girls." Let us hope that it will do them good. A vengeance so awful falls upon one offender that it ought to have its effect on even the most hardened. The greater part of the story describes the life of a boarding-school ; there, at least, it is not pleasant to read, but it is written with power.—Christabel Hope, by Mrs. Jerome Mercier (Warne and Co.), is more to our mind. Christabel is a dear little creature, who wins the reader's heart from the first moment that he sees her, surrounded by one of those strange "second lives" of fancy in which some children, and grown-up people too, spend half their lives. And the other heroine, Bell, with her passion for the stage and her disenchantment, and sensible Mrs. Baker, with her "calmly cheerful face, in whose wide expanse the features cropped out like insignificant local accidents on an extensive plain," are capitally drawn. Altogether, this is a delightful book.— Claudia: a Tale, by A. L 0. E. (Nelson), is a sketch of some power, showing how a heroine, who thinks nobody honest enough, entangles herself through her self-conceit in a web of elaborate deceit. If the authoress could have been content with teaching this lesson, and not meddled with more difficult spiritual questions, it would have been well.—The Hill-Side Farm, by Anna J. Buckland (Cassell and Co.), is a bright little story, not without humour.—For the Little Orphan, by Annie Thornley (Cassell and Co.), we can say only that it is well meant.—One by One, a Child's Book of Tales and Fables, the Golden Harp, and Rhyme and Reason (Routledge), are from the pen of H. W. Dulcken, Ph.D. All are very elegantly got up, all plentifully furnished with good illustrations. Rhyme and Reason has the best pictures, full of liveliness and fun. One by One the best reading. Dr. Dulcken has collected his tales from far, alike from east and west, from Arab story-tellers and /Eaop. Many of them are good, and some are new,—new to us, at all events. This is how Zadig advised the king to choose a treasurer. Take the lightest dancer,' he said. Now the candidates passed through the treasury, and when they came before the king one of them skipped about marvellously well ; and lo! he was the only one whose pockets were empty.— We can have no doubt what to say about Brave Old Ballads (Ward, Lock, and Tyler), a handsome volume of such old favourites as " Adam Bell," "Chevy Chase," "The Tanner of Tanworth," with bright illustrations by Mr. John Gilbert. There are of Old England. —The Enchanted Toasting-Fork (Tinsley), with its chaffing rhymes, and pictures, often clever, is very characteristic of the New.—Among new editions precedence must be given to Mr. Charles Kingsley's Water- Babies (Macmillan).—As a book of the old style, wo may contrast the Story of the Robins, by Mrs. Trimmer (Warne), now for the first time, we learn, adorned with illustrations printed in colours, and, with or without them, long, wo trust, to remain a favourite.—The Circle of flee Year is an adaptation, by Mr. W. H. Davenport Adams, of a French work, Les Saisons (Nimmo). —Old Merry's Annual (Hodder and Stoughton) and Aunt Judy's Christmas Volume (Bell and Daldy) give us in a handsome form the year or half-year's issue of two well-known magazines.—We have also received a new edition of George Cruik- shank's Table-Book (Bell and Daldy).—Robinson Crusoe (Cassell and Co.) appears in a binding more gorgeous than we ever saw him wear before. This is new, but the illustrations seem familiar.—Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress appears in words of one syllable in two rival series. Messrs. Cassell publish one by Mr. S. P. Day, Messrs. Routledge another by Mary Godolphin.
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