7 NOVEMBER 1885, Page 20

The Village Blacksmith. (Griffith, Ferran, and Co.)—This is an illustrated

edition of Longfellow's poem,—an authorised edition, it is right to say. Six artists have contributed the illustrations, which are twelve in number. They are mostly good, but scarcely harmonious. The couple who are walking to Church on Sunday do not seem to fit in to the poem. He is too old ; and who is she ? for the black- smith's wife was dead. Why not have represented him with the two little boys who appear in the other pictures P The " Paradise " illus- tration is scarcely a success ; and the figure of the widower in the ninth picture (his hair is certainly not " crisp and black and long") is quite different from that in the twelfth (though the situation looks like the same in both). The twelfth illustration is admirable.