CURRENT LITERATURE • The Ingoldsby Legends. With Sixty Illustrations. (Bentley.)—This
is a very beautifully illustrated edition of the "Ingoldaby Legends" which attained so sudden and wide a popularity some twenty years since. Whether their comedy, which mainly depends upon applying the slang and " chaff " of our own day to the mediaeval legends, be of a kind to se- cure for them a permanent place in our comic literature may well be open to dispute; but in this splendid edition theyhave, at least, all the aid which extremely clever illustrations by Cruikshank, Tenniel, and Leech can give them. We may instance two among many full of talent; the picture of " The Jackdaw of Rheims," by Leech, where the poor little jackdaw, with his feathers "all turned the wrong way," and his bald head, is standing penitently before the portly Lord Cardinal and his train ; and an inimitable portrait of "My Poor Dog Tray," a Sky-terrier begging, by Tenniel. The binding and general get up of the book are perfect in their way, and though brilliant, not too much so for good taste or artistic effect.
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