ORRIBTMAS Boom. — Our Old Uncle's Home, by Mother Carey
(Griffith and Ferran), tells us in a sufficiently amusing way how two young gentlemen went to live with an old uncle and aunt, precise people, who had never had a boy within a mile of them before ; how miserable they wore, having always to walk about in their beat clothes, and beinglorbidden to climb ; how they were delivered by a philan- thropic parson of the " mtlsoular sort," and how they amused themselves afterwards.—Distant Cousins, by the author of o What makes me Grow" (Seeley), is a series of dialogues with n certain Amy and George, hold with their mother about children in other countries. The mother hol a notion—a very wise ono, by the way—that this is a good way of putting some life into the dry-bones of geography ; so she talks about Gorman, Egyptian, Italian children, and so forth, interspersing her talk with sundry anecdotes. It is a very good. book of the insttuctivo kind. The illustrations are excellent.—Dames of High Estate. By Madame De Witt. (Warne.)—A title not, we think, very happily chosen, imper- fectly describes what is a very charming volume. The reader will have got but a very little way in the first talc,—.it is the story of how Jeanne do Montfort fought for the Duchy. of Brittany,—without fooling a strong attraction to what ho reads. There is the striking scene, for instance, in which the leper is solemnly pronounced by the priest to be dead, and oho sharp saying of the friar who, preaching about the custom which allowed the wives to boat their husbands on Easter Monday, gave this advice to his hearers,--" Wives, boat your husbands as you would wish them to boat you on the morrow ; husbands, boat your wives as you would they had beaten you. tho day before." To the historical narrative Froissart, always delightful, of course contributes ; it comes to an end in the battle of Crecy. There is an underplot in a very prettily told tale of the loves of Odetto, a maiden in the household of the Countess, and a certain stout soldier, Aubrey by name. Another story describes the splendour and the fall of Fouquot, Louis XIV.'s groat Superintendent of Finances. A third. is devoted to the early days of Blaiso and Jacqueline Pascal, and the scone of the fourth is laid in the insurrection of La Vendee. The book, wo should say, is quite new, having been translated from the MS. under the editorship of Miss Charlotte M. Yongo. The translation roads well, except, perhaps, hero and there whore some technical phrase is used. This, for in- atanco, "the King had proposed a change in theraoveru•of the funds, and the innovation would make his secret expenses so difficult that the Superintendent," &a., is not easy to understand,—A Book of Golden Deeds. By the Author of " The Heir of Redolyffe." (Macmillan.)—Miss Yong° has "gathered and narrated" these stories with praiseworthy industry and skill. Most of them aro, of course, the familiar narratives which, well as we may know them, we al'a not early to hear again, certainly not when they are told by so skilful an artist as Miss Yong°. Some of them, which the author deserves special credit for bringing to light, will be unknown to most readers,—non minor a, serf obscuriora. , Such is the story of how Lieutenant Lys, Edward Touzel, a carpenter, and William Pouteney, a private soldier of the 3rd regi- ment, saved from an imminent explosion the powder magazine in Jersey, and probably with it no inconsiderable part of the island. Such, too, probably, is the story of Jesup() Parollo, who received the " 31 onthyon Prize of Virtue " in 1883, certainly a marvellous record of filial devotion. Tho heroism of Archbishop Fednef, of Moscow, in withstanding Ivan the Terrible is soothe r memorable thing, obscured by the remote and barbarous scene on which it was enacted, We have no wish to under- value good fiction, but true tales of such a noble sort are, after all, the best reading. M. Ft olich supplies spirited illustrations to the text.— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, from the French of Jules Verne (Griffith and Ferran), is an ingenious extravagance, by which the author probably intends to convey to his readers some scraps of scientific knowledge, not, as may bo supposed, without a considerable admixture of tho fabulous. Professor Hardwigg discovers in a volume of a "famous Icelandic author," Snores Tolleson (we do not recognize the name under this form), a piece of parchment covered with mysteri- ous characters, which are at last interpreted as pointing out the route by which travellers may reach "the contra of the earth." Here M. Verne may bo supposed to be borrowing from Edgar Poo, but from this point he is certainly original, The point of departure is the critter of an ex- tinct volcano iu Iceland. Into this the professor, with his companions, a nephew and a guide, descend. Then follow all sorts of strange sights and adventures. The travellers come across the primeval forests to which we owe our coal. They find enormous n/yot, miles long. They have fine sport in catching fish which, in these upper regions, can only be found in a fossil condition. They fly in terror from gigantic mum- tuella, and even a gigantic man. To the centre of the earth, however, they do not got. Still they have enough of the marvellous, ending appropriately by being ejected from the crater of Stromboli. —House, Auld Tales arul Fairy Stories. (Routledge.)—If the first talc, were not redeemed by its delightful illustrations (which wo owe to the pencil of Mr. W. McConnell), we should say that it is not judiciously placed in the front. It is "The History of Five Little Pigs," and it is certainly too didactic. The little pig "who got roast-hoof " was a little prig, and we cannot help owning to a wish that he had boon somehow made to cry " Wee ! wee!" Wo have no other unfavourable criticism to make, except it be to remark, hpropos of " Tonto belle," that fairy stories must never end badly. On the whole, it.is a capital book. " Tho most popular Favourites," which the title-page promises to give us, we are glad to see again ; those which we do not recognize aro welcome, and the illustrations are a per- potual delight.—Ainicre : a Tale nf the Days of .Tames II. By Agnes Gil- berne. (Seeley.)—The tale opens with a scene in Languedoc. 'rho Château de Salvornai is the home of a French Protestant gentleman, and the time is that of the "Dragonnades." The reader will guess the character of the narrative in the earlier chapter, which is indeed of a painful kind, though in no wise, we think, exaggerated in style. After all, there were Dragonnades, and would be again, if the authors of the Syllabus were logical and bad their own way. The story ought to be told now and then ; still wo are not displeased to got away to England, and find ourselves in a freer and brighter atmosphere. Aimee is a very well- told story.—The Golden Fleece, by A. L. 0. E. (Nelson), is a suffi- ciently amusing tale of a young lady who wins over a cynical old uncle to bettor ways of thinking, permanently benefits her village, and finally secures her own happiness by the sacrifice of what the title indientee. Grave and gay aro well mixed together, and the "serious" element is tnanaged with tact and. di scretion.—Liariland Forest : a Legend of North Devon. By Mrs. Bray. (Longmans.)—This is not a ghost story as one half expects from the title. There is, indeed, a " spectre horseman," but he is explained away in the usual rationalizing fashion. The story is that of the fortunes of four generations of a Devonshire family,—the Fairlande of Northleigh Hall. The principal'personage is Sir John of that name. We read how he marries a great heiress, how ill ho behaves to her and his children, and how, finally, the right triumphs. His character is well drawn, not all in black paint, as would be done by an unskilful hand, but with an admixture of shades that approves itself as natural.—Messrs. Gtoonabridge give us a great variety of stories in no loss than five volumes. These aro Oscar, a Tale of Norway, and other Stories ; Alfred the Great, ; Round the 'Voile' 6T. ; 510011 t the Missionary, iS.e. ; The Children and the Sage. Most of those aro, we observed, compiled with more or loss care and success from well-known narratives. Tho last mentioned, ter instance, tells about Galileo, Columbus, and the Duke of Wellington. "Round the World" again describes the travels of Madame Ida Pfeiffer, of whom, by the way, the writer speaks ns if she were still alive ; gives an account of the discoveries of Dr. Layard among the Assyrian cities ; and tells the story of the Mutiny of the Bounty. Hero the writer does not seem to have consulted the best authority on the subject, Lady 1.3eleher's work. On the whole, we prefer the first named of the volumes.—Aunt Jenny's American Pets. By Catherine C. Hopley. (Griffith and Farran).—Hore the title suffi- ciently declares the contents of the book. Aunt Jenny is an English lady who has lived for some years in the United States, and who Conies over to see her nephews and nieces in Eugland. They have their rooms already full of all sorts of pots, and listen with delighted interest to what she has to toll them of the habits and ways of feathered creatures on the other side of the Atlantic. Harry hope's Ilolidus. By J. T. Burgess. (Rout,ledge.)—Master Hope catches a bad fever at school, and goes down to a schoolfellow's house in tho coun- try to recruit. Here we have the story of how ho spends a year in amusing himself and in regaining his health. For our taste there is a thought too much "killing and slaying" in it, but then boys are very fond of killing and slaying.—Rantledge's Boy's Manual is as attractive as usual with its tales, and practical instructions about fishing, &c. The Rev. H. C. Adams, Lieutenant Low, and Mr. R. M. Ballantyno are among the well-known names of the contributors. One horrible picture'—a man being torn to pieces by crocodiles—excepted, we see nothing to object to.—Ohl Merry's Annual (Hodder and Stoughton) is a superior book of its kind, a praiseworthy attempt to give young renders something worth having. "Old Morry's Monthly Memoranda " are a mine of good sense, and such articles as Mr. Arthur O'Neil's Ancient Mariners" are of real value.—Wo have to notice a very elegant cabinet edition of Works of Fancy and Imagination, by Goorgo Macdonald (Stratum.) There are ten volumes in all, four of thom containing Mr. Macdonald's poems, the remainder boing dovotod to some of his shorter prose works, among which we may mention Phantastes, and the charming fairy tales which, witness "The Light Princess," the author knows how to tell as well as any man. It may be taken as one of the insignia of literary canonization when an author has his works presented to the public in the very pretty and convenient capsa or box in which the volumes before us appear, and we may congratulate Mr. Goorgo Macdonald, who lees always striven for what is pure and noble and of good report, on having attained this distinction.—The Potirie Bird, by the Hon. C. A. Murray (Reutledge). is a talc of established reputation, which probably many people will bo glad to possess in the cheap and con- venient volume in which Messrs. Routledge offer it to the public. Would it not be wiser, not to say anything of frank dealing, to state on the title-page that it is a "reprint," and to appeal to the reputation of the book, than to speculate on the chance of its being bought as a novelty by a portion of the public?—Nine Years Old, by the Author of "When I was a Little Girl," illustrated by L. Frolich (Macmillan), appears iu a second odition.—Wo have also to mention, rather late, we fear, from the wording of the preface (the volutne, however, hats only just corns into our hands), a new edition of Popular Romances of the IVest of England. Collected and edited by Robert Haut. (Hotten.)— The first and second caries of the original edition aro now included in one volume. The frontispiece; George Cruikehank's admirable skotch, "The Giant Bolster striding from the Beacon to Corn Brett," is alone worth whatever the reader may give for the volume. The giant was twelve miles high, and we do not know of any one but Mr. Omit:- shank who could take his full-length so well.—We have to acknow- ledge two handsome volumes, full of good reading, being the year's issue of the Leisure How and the Snadall at Home (The Religious Tract Society). — We had almost forgotten to mention two little volumes meant for the little ones, the infant's Delight, Vol. II., and the Children's Treasure (The Graphotyping Company, Limi- ted). Both are excellent and cheap, it about the rate of (lye or six pictures, some of them gaily coloured, for a penny. — Rolbent and his Time. By Dr, Alfred Woltmann, translated by F. L. Bunnolt. (Bentloy.)—Holbein, unlike Raphael, is well represented in this country,—in which, indeed, he spent some of the most productive years of his life. At the same time, we are in possession of many par- ticulars, and these frequently of an interesting kind, about the painter's domestic and artistic life, particulars to which recent discoveries have made some curious additions. Dr. \Voltmann combines the biographical and artistic elements into what is a very interesting work. The volume, which has, it may be observed, a very elegant exterior, is illus- trated throughout with engravings, numbering sixty In all. "The Death of St. Sebastian," from the Munich Pinacothek, " The Madonna of tho Burgomaator Motor," from tire collection at Darmstadt, among the groat pictures, and Erasmus (wonderfully like a certain accomplished Done) and Archbishop Worham (a picture which none who saw it when it was ex- hibited will have forgotten), among the portraits, are the most noticeable of these. We wish, by the way, that same one would make a complete collection of Holboin's portraits. We notice that Dr. Woltmann thinks that the larger part of the groat picture in, the Barber-Surgeons' Hall was added by some inferior hand. It is impossible, indeed, to believe that the barbarous drawing of some of it could have boon flolbein'i work, and that, too, at a time when ho had reached the culminating point of his genius. New books of the season are bettor worth possessing than " Holbeln and his Time."
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