7 DECEMBER 1889, Page 9

Messrs. Routledge publish a book of very spirited pictures, The

Boy's Book of British Battles, by Richard Simpkin. These begin with Blenheim in 1701, and end with Tel-el-Kebir in 1882, a very complete affair, no doubt, in its way, but hardly to be ranked with such battles of the giants as Blenheim, Badajos, and Vittoria. Each picture is accompanied by a few lines of text, giving the occasion of the battle, the number§ engaged and put hors de combat, and other leading particulars. The pictures, as we have said, are uniformly spirited, but they vary, we imagine, in historic fidelity. Can the position of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, within, it would seem, a few yards of the French Guard, be correct ? And is the legend of " Up, Guards, and at them !" really true ?