SEASON ROOKS *

ALTHOUGH the annuals have, we believe, entirely passed away, they were too consonant to many of our best and most genial feelings to leave no results behind them. Their literature, it is true, was not much, and indeed survives in many publications ; but their bibliographic character has had an extensive influence on books in general. Their typographical luxe and still more their illustrations have furnished an exemplar which has not only been followed in the boudoir class of books, but has extended to every kind of publication, even when cheapness is an element. That the illustrations of existing books are mostly inferior in originality and spirit to those of the earlier annuals; as well in design as in

The Merrie Days of Rugland. Sketches of the Olden- Time. By Edward .11`Dermott. Illustrated with Twenty Engravings, from Drawings by Joseph Nash, .George Thomas, Birket Foster, and Edward Corbould. Published by Kent and Co. The Poetical Works.elUtomas Gray. Published by Sampson Low and Co.

De La Rue's ImpiNn ',Indelible Diary and Memorandian Boa 1859. 'Edited by Norman-Pogson. First Assistant at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford. Published by De La Ilue and Co. •

De La Rue's Red Letter Diary and Improved Memorandum Book 1859. Pub- lished by Be La Rue and Co.

The Trusmphs of Steams; or, Stories from the Lives of Watt, Arkwright, and Stephenson. By the Autbor of" Might not Bight." With Illustrations by John -Gilbert. Published bY,Griffith and Farren. Favourite Pleissusv Books for Young People. Illustrated with one hundred Pictures, by John Absalom., Edward Wehnert, and Harrison Weir. Printed in colours. Published by Sampson Low and CO.

Child's Play. By E. T. B. Published by Sampson Low and Co.

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The Headlong Career and IrofullEnding of Precocious Piggy. By the late

Thomas Hood. Illustrated by his ton. Published by Griffith and Farren.

Among the books-before us, the nearest approach to the old Annual in appearance and general style is Mr. Edward. Af!Der. mott's liferrie Days of England. Its garb resplendent in scarlet and gold—its clear and attractive typography surrounded 1* ample margins—its twenty illustrations of the sports and pai: times on which the memory of many fondly looks back as te signs of a golden age, with its initial letters, tail-pieces, and ornaments, all combine to render it very presentable, and secure it a " worthy acceptance." " Sketches of the Olden Time " fitted to occupy a place on the table, from the luxurious boudoir to the genteel morning room. . The letter-press is extremely pleasant, and is, what letter-press is not always, in strict agreement with the plates. Whether Ms M`Dermott is treating of Maj- Games," or `.‘ Harvest Home," es " Shepherdesses and Milk-maids," "Plays and Myster" " Hunting and Hawking," " Pilgrims " on the road to Canter' bury, "Baronial Feasts," or the other customs and character- isties of olden time which gave the name of "merry" to England, he always sticks to his text. The subject whatever it be is de- scribed in prose ; and adorned by prose and verse from writers of all ages; and perhaps of all grades, from Chaucer and the ballad writers, from Latimer, Tusser, and Herrick, down to Bulwer and Tennysoi., Some, perhaps, may object to the "azure hue" which Mr. M‘Dermott, gazing through the enchanting distance of ages, throws over the past ; or say that a little more of precise anti- quarian information thrown :Into the pages would have improved them. We do not know that we should agreq with this class of cavillers. Christmas is not a season for criticizing, at least Christmas books. "Man is born to trouble," and 'doubtless our ancestor's had their griefs, but if they sunk them, and brought out their jollities into high relief, why dig out conjectural troubles, which the men themselves probably did not feel.

" 'Tis merry in hall, 'When beards wag all;"

but the bard does not sing of consequent indigestion ; and Mr. M‘Dermott's book has the feeling of poetry. Neither would dry disquisition or "accounts improve the lightness of Herrie Days of England" statistics of deaths prices of provisions, and the quantity of meat devoured per head by the whole population, would vulgarize the thing altogether. Our author's authorities are of a more congenial kind. Listen to the inment of Pasquil nodia on the decline of May Poles and of the country with them.

"Happy the age, and harnilesse were the dayes (For then true love and amity were found), When every village did a May Pole raise, And Whitsun ales and May Games did abound,

And all the lusty younkers in a rout,, With merry lasses dbunced the rod about, Then Friendship to their banquets bid the guests, And peeve men fared the better for their feasts. The lords of castles, manners, townes, and towers,. Rejoiced when they beheld-the farmers flourish,

And would come down unto the summer bowers, To see the country gallants dance the morriee.

But since the Summer Poles were overthrown,

And all good sports and merriments decayed,

How times and men'are.changed, so well is knowne, It were but Mho-title:it if more were said."

Did not typograhy- give us the means of indefinite multipli- cation this volume _of Gray's Poetical works would be worth its weight in gold. Goldsmith, Collins,. and Gray are the only Eng- lish poets who are " teres atgue rotundas" throughout their prg- ductions ; and Gray is preeminent among the three. Vor Collins, through the nature of some of his themes,-or their abstract treat- ment is not greatly popular, and some of Goldsmith's are urn- finished through his premature death ; whereas Gray, although the attraction of his poems may vary with the nature of the subject, is always perfect... His fragments, if incomplete, are finished as far as they go..- There are also pieces of Goldy that are not quite fitted to be, as Mr. Bowdler has it, read aloud in families. The same may be said of Gray's " Cambridge Court- ship"; but- that Messrs. Sampson Low have judiciously omitted.

The peculiar characteristic of the present ..edition harmonizes with the poetry : it is finished. The volume is handsome ; the seven landscapes out of the eight illustrations are striking speci- mens in. themselves as are the whole eight of wood engraving the paper is tinted a full cream colour, the typography is clear, and adapted to the size of the page ; but it is a something finished about all the parts and the whole too which stamps the edition. The only improvement we should suggest is a somewhat lighter binding—the board is too heavy for the book ; but that is perhaps done to imitate the old-fashioned style of bi,nding, Quite in 'contrast with the two previous gift-books of the com- ing season are Messrs. 'Do La Rue's Ped-Letter Diaries. There is nothing of the past about them, unless in chronological tables of Royalty, Parliaments of Great Britain, or the long duration Of the solar and planetary systems. But though to impart general information connected with the frequent demands of society, or the business of life or to enable the reader by means oi the diary to hive self-knowledge, is the principal aim of the books, they follow the fashion of ornament as primarily set by the An- nuals. As might be expected from the character of the firm, a chaste elegance distinguishes the publications. Besides the tom- mon feature of excellent printing, red, letters are intermixed nat arbitrarily or with mere regard to the eye but . to mark the subject matters more distinctly. It would improve the " ealea- der to avoid the medley a subjects which almanack-makers in- variably introduce. What natural necessity should place Mr. Dickens between the .fifth Sunday after Epiphany and half- narter daK, except the " accident of birth" (on the 7th Febru- g 9 y should the battle of the Boyne (1st July) conic be-

arS) • ween the foundation of Greenwich Hospital and the Sun in apo-

°ye ? There is room for unity in the art of "cooking up an al-

mattock."

We believe these -Red-Letter Diaries are of various kinds, but the three before us are- respectively intended for gentlemen, belies, and desks. That for gentlemen is put into a brown 11115Sia pocket-book, that for ladies is brighter in its case, and smaller in size with less business information and fewer pockets ; but in each they are lined with silk, soft as the notes they will, let us hope, contain. The desk diary is a half-bound octavo volume, chiefly differing from other diaries of a similar kind, in the style of its appearance.

The course of our survey has brought us to a batch of children's gift-books. The Triumphs of steam. Favourite Pleasure-Books. Child's Play, Precocious 'Piggy.

Illustration with a holiday appearance is the main characteristic of these four books. The Triumphs of Steam, perhaps, comes under the head of juvenile rather than children's publications. It is the lives of Watt, Arkwright, and Stephenson, the facts mainly drawn from Arago, Muir, Smiles, and others, thrown into a dramatic form and varied in the telling by dialogues, the framework being a family party and family incidents.

The " Pleasure Books" is a selection of well-known tales, as the House that Jack Built, Mother Hubbard and her Dog : "Child's Play" consists of nursery verses as " Little Boy Blue come blow your Horn" : and these productions, trivial as they seem, strike us as better adapted to the youthful mind than the essence of the " ologies " dryly presented. The features of both books are the coloured illustrations. In the "Pleasure Books " these illustrations amount to a hundred from designs by John Absolon, Edward Welmert, and Harrison :Weir. They are " print- ed in colours from a succession of engraved wood blocks, at a machine worked by steam, and several thousand copies were worked off [sic] at the same time." The illustrations in "

Play" if not of a higher class in design exhibit more elaboration in the colour printing.

The story of Precocious Piggy told long ago by the late Thomas Hood to his children, and now illustrated by his son, and edited by his daughter' is an allegory, in which the life of a " fast " youth is typified in the "headlong career" and " woful ending" of a young pig, who starts to see the world and after sundry wild. doin,es finds himself in the hands of a butcher. The illustrations are clever and humorous. The pig figure as well as the pig face is preserved throughout,