26 NOVEMBER 1864, Page 23

Peter Parley's Annual for 1865. A Christmas and New Year's

Pre- sent for Young People. (William Kent and Co.) —A pleasant volume

profusely illustrated with wood-cuts and coloured prints, showy if not very refined. The spirit of the magazine is thoroughly good, and it avoids the common fault of being too manly, but some of the descriptive papers are very inaccurate. The writer who has undertaken to des- cribe Oxford can scarcely have visited the city, and really any one who pretends to write about Eton for boys should avoid such a blunder as speaking of "the ninth form." Every boy knows that there are never more than six forms in a public schooL