The Five Days' Entertainments at Wentworth Grange. By Francis Turner
Palgrave. (Macmillan.)—We are a little disappointed with this book, which we opened in a most favourable mood, and which further com- mended itself to us by a most charming engraving on the frontispiece. That it will please the little people we very much doubt, though, indeed, they are critics whose verdict it is not easy for their elders to anticipate. "I do not want a true story—about naughty boys," said an intelligent young gentleman of four to the writer the other day, "but a real funny story." Mr. Palgravo is, perhaps, too didactic, and he is certainly not funny. Often, it is true, he will raise a smile on the lips of older readers, but it is by touches of wit or cynical humour which a child would not appreciate. He reminds us, from time to time, of Thackeray's the Rose and the Ring, and as a mover of laughter this was one of that writer's masterpieces, yet it was hardly a child's book. The humorous extravagance, for instance, of the prince speaking for three days appeals to experiences of weariness, of which children know nothing. Mr. Pal- grave, of course, is sure to put seine good work into what he writes, and we do not miss it here. Some of the tales are old favourites, and do. not lose their attraction in his bands. The illustrations are admirable.
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