CURRENT LITERATURE.
CHRISTMAS BOOKS.
Dr. Ox's Experiment, and other Stories. Translated from the French of *Tales Verne. (Sampson Low and Co.) M. Jules Verne is entitled to a high place among the writers of "Christmas Books." His in- genuity is inexhaustible ; he is audacious in his inventions, without departing altogether from a certain versimilitude. He is always entertaining, and yet does contrive to teach something of actual truth to the intelligent among his readers. Dr. Ox's Experiment is in his best style. The learned doctor experiments anon the character of a phleg- matic Flemish town, a town where lovers could not get a courtship finished under ten years, and where the song with which Figaro comes upon the stage—for they had a theatre—took more than fifty minutes to sing. The people of Quiquendone—that is the name of this town— are sufficiently progressive to desire to have their town lighted. And Dr. Ox undertakes the work. He is going to employ a new agent ; but he employs it, the reader will see, in a more stupendous experi- ment, that of changing the dispositions of the Quiquendonians by modifying the atmosphere in which they live. What fun is made during the working-out of the process may be imagined. "Master Zacharias" is a somewhat weird tale, which will suit those who love the mysterious. In "A Drama in the Air" M. Verne is aeronautical, and in "A Winter amid the Ice" he tells a thrilling tale of arctic adventure. Last comes the spice of reality in the account of the "Fortieth French Ascent of M. Blanc," an ascent effected by M. Paul Verne.—This Troublesome World; or, "Bet of Stow." By Lady Barker. (Hatchards.) Lady Barker is a very fortunate person, for she can not only tell a very good story "out of her own head," as the children say, but she has the luck to find "a true story" of the most romantic kind. Eliza- beth Armstrong is the daughter of a Scotch Lowland farmer, who cherishes—the scene of the story is laid in the earlier half of the last century—an enthusiastic devotion to the cause of the Stuarts. How she goes to Edinburgh to be educated, how she takes service as a governess in a gloomy manor-house on the -English side of the Border, how she falls there into a creel trap laid for her by the spite of a housekeeper whose peculation she has stopped, how she is sent to the "Plantations," cap- tured on the way by Barbary pirates, and kept as a prisoner in one of the palaces of the Salt= of Morocco—all this, and more, is told to admirable effect, Lady Barker skilfully interweaving with her own narrative the naïf and graphic expressions of the original. We recom- mend our readers to see "how it ends" for themselves, and shall not spoil the story by giving a hint of it.—The Autobiography of a Man- of- War's Bell. By Lieutenant C. R. Low. (Rontledge.) Here we have a tale of the naval glories of the eighteenth century. In 1757 the Melpomene ' frigate sails from Portsmouth, and the "Ball "commences its career on board. Of course, it gets plenty of fighting with the French, and is properly victorious, as an English frigate should be. But something is due to the necessities of the tale-writer as well as to national pride. Accordingly, the 'Melpomene' has at last to yield to superior strength, and the " Bell " changes masters. But it came home again when the Ville de Paris, into which it had been put, is captured by Lord Rodney, and it finally finds a home in the United Service Institution, where it tells its story, having no reason, we may say, to complain of the way in which this has been rendered by Lieu- tenant Low. The narrative is full of interest, and told in a genial spirit. What a kind-hearted man he must be who could pen this sentence about his young hero!—" He had the desire for intellectual improvement which is generally found in boys trained in our great public schools." —The Three Lieutenants; or, Naval Life in the Nineteenth Century. By W. H. Kingston. (Griffith and Farran.) Here we are carried forward about a hundred years, though we are still on board a sailing frigate. (No naval tale-writer has as yet ventured to lay the scene of his narrative on board a turret-ship. We promise a favourable notice to the first who shall make the venture.) There is no lighting with the French to be enjoyed here, and we suspect that is what boys do enjoy most, in spite of the entente cordiale; but there is sparring with Cen- tral and South-American Republics—is this really historical P—chases after pirates, and hairbreadth escapes of all sorts from "flood and fire." Mr. Kingston is an old hand at entertaining boys, and has not lost his skill. But all youngsters must not expect to be posted to ships where one of the lieutenants is an elder brother.—The Gentleman Cadet, by Lieutenant-Colonel Drayson (Griffith and Ferran), is entitled by its author "a tale of the past." We fervently hope that the state of things which it describes at the Academy of Woolwich is "past," and taking this for granted, we may allow, on the "suave marl magno " principle, that the book is pleasant reading. We can- not but think that the plan which Colonel Drayson represents his hero as pursuing, and which by implication he recommends to his readers, is somewhat perilous. He amuses himself while his competi- tors are reading, but he thinks over his problems in bed He must be an exceptional lad of eighteen who remains awake for two minutes after he has got into bed,—at all events, to think of problems.—The White Rose of Langley, by Emily S. Holt. (John F. Shaw.) This is a tale of the historical kind. The object of the writer is to rehabilitate the character of Constance, daughter of Edmund, Duke of York, whose name "has been," she says "for five hundred years a name of scorn," but whom she believes to have suffered for adherence to Lollard opinions. However this may be, the manners and the customs of the period have been carefully studied, and historical truth ad- hered to with praiseworthy accuracy. Any one who reads the book carefully will certainly get help towards understanding a somewhat complicated period of English history. For our part, we feel bound to confess that we found the first fifty pages or so the best in the volume. The sufferings of little Maude in the kitchen of the great palace of Langley and her promotion to the upper regions inter- ested us, and we were sorry to leave them for those of the more distin- guished personages with whom Miss Holt makes us acquainted.— Fleur-de-Lis : Leaves from French History, by Esther Carr (Hatchards). Here we have four sketches of important persons in French history. The first, under the title of "The White Flag in Italy," gives an account of the early days of Charles VIIL, of his marriage with Anne of Bretagne, of his conquest of the kingdom of Naples, and of his death. The life of Catherine de Bourbon, the unfortunate sister of Henry IV., is more full of biographical detail, and consequently more attractive. The "Minority of Louis MIL," and "Philippe D'Anjou,* afterwards Philip V. of Spain, complete the volume, which is generally creditable to its anther. Sometimes we could have wished for a simpler style. Why, for instance, such grandiloquence as "to ameliorate her financial condition "P—The Fiery Cross, or the Vow of Montrose, by Barbara Hutton (Griffith and Ferran), is another fragment of history which can scarcely fail to be interesting.—We may here mention a revised and corrected edition of Mr. Henry Kingsley's Valentin: a French Boy's Story of Sedan. (Routledge.)— The Hunter and the Trapper in North America, by W. H. Davenport Adams (Nelson), is an adaptation from the French of M. Benedict lidvoiL We do not know whether it has ever appeared before in Eng- land, but the sporting adventures which it relates happened more than a quarter of a century ago. For the purposes of the sportsman, this in a serious consideration. The United States have changed so rapidly, that cities probably stand where M. Revell shot the buffalo and the deer. But it does not diminish the charm of the writer's lively manner, which makes his sketches as readable as anything of the kind could well be.— Two Years in East Africa, by Emile Jo nveaux (Nelson), is a book of travel comparatively recent, as it includes an account of the overthrow of Theodore, of Abyssinia. M. Jouveaux made his way to the regions bordering on the great Equatorial lakes, and his adventures and experi- ences there are interesting, and not the less readable because they are told with a brevity which is seldom found in tales of African travel. His answer to King ll'tessa when he was asked for a watch, and had nothing to give but his own chronometer, is worth reading:—" I insinuated that a watch was a scientific instrument of much utility to travellers, but worthless to a King like him, who could regulate the hours according to his good pleasure, and not suffer himself to be the slave of them. Arms were objects far worthier of his courage ; those which I had presented to him, needle-guns, attracted at that moment the personal attention of all the Sovereigns of Europe."— Wrecked on a Reef; or, Twenty Months among the Auckland Isles, from the French of E. Raynel (Nelson), is, we believe, according to the claim of its title-page, "a trim tale." To, many of our readers, it will probably be known already. To others we can recommend it as a graphic but not exaggerated description of perils and hardships bravely encountered. Twenty months in the Auckland Isles, where it never ceases to blow and seldom ceases to rain, would be more than equal to twenty years in Juan Fernandez.—Boons and Blessings, by Mrs. S. C. Hall (Virtue, Spalding, and Co.), is described on its title-page as "Stories and Sketches to Illustrate the Advantages of Temperance." Some of its contents have already been published. As usual, Mrs. Hall is happiest in her Irish sketches. It is not easy to write stories with a purpose, especially a very set and definite purpose, so that they shall not have a certain stiffness. The difficulty is got over here as well as it is likely to be anywhere. When the author is thoroughly at home—in her delineations of Irish life—it may be said to disappear. The illustrations are unusually good.—The Carbridges: a Suburban Story. By M. Bramston. (Frederick Warne.) This is another story of the didactic kind, though not of a type so marked as the preceding. The author sets herself to oppose the belief that "the spirit of chivalry is antagonistic to the spirit of commerce." So she gives us the history of a very fine young fellow who stuck close to the duties of "the shop," but was at the same time as honourable and generous as a man could be. The story is well and pleasantly told, but it is not, we are bound to say, exactly adapted to the writer's thesis. The trade is really kept in the background, though we are pretty constantly reminded that the hero worked hard at it. He is not represented as "taking a pride in it," to use the words of the preface, as a young clergyman might be represented as taking a pride in his pro- fession or a young barrister in his. Of course the details are, in a literary point of view, unmanageable. But is it not a fact that a trade must always occupy a different position with regard to a man's moral and intellectual interests from that which a profession may do P—Messrs. Marcus Ward and Co. have sent us their Christmas box of cards and pictures and ornamented letter-papers, even more prettily conceived and delicately executed than last year. Mr. Marks furnishes a quaint little book of four mediaival Christmas pictures, the happily unconscious state of the fat pigs which are being inspected bringing forcibly to one's mind Gray's pathetic line on the young Etonians. Some of the cards are really beautiful as works of art; we noticed one particularly graceful group of Christmas roses and ferns and mixture of the wood-sorrel. There are sachets too, to delight many a small maiden's heart, and perfume her handkerchiefs ; and endless pretty combinations of fruit and flowers.
Previous page
