association with which it came down to us, making it sacred by long usage and domestic familiarity. Bran-new rhymes must possess singular virtues that shall displace these wise and loveable old jingles. Aunt Effie's specimens are certainly not of this order. Not a line of them will ever be remembered after they are read. They are little more than nonsense verses, prattling about pigs and cats and ducks, with a touch of the picturesque in them that will make them pass off pleasantly enough in the moment of perusal, but without depositing in the mind a solitary grain of thought. Take a short specimen, as good in its way as any of

the rest.

THE GREAT BROWN OWL.

I.

The brown Owl sits in the ivy bush,

And she looketh wondrous wise, With a horny beak beneath her cowl, And a pair of large round eyes.

II.

She sat all day on the self-same spray,
From sunrise till sunset:
And the dim, grey light it was all too
bright

For the owl to see in yet.

III.

'Jenny-Owlet, Jenny Owlet,' said a merry little bird,

They say you're wondrous wise; But I don't think you see, though you're looking at ME

With your large, round, shining eyes.'

IV.

But night came soon, and the pale white

moon

Rolled high up in the skies; And the great brown owl flew away in her cowl,

With her large, round, shining eyes.

What does the little reader extract from this? Is he not likely, when he comes to the end, to wonder what it is all about, and in consequence to forget it incontinently?

We have spoken of the applications of high art to the purposes of children's books, and a specimen of singular beauty is before us in a volume called Child's Play. It consists of a collection of charming etchings, carrying out with wonderful effect the pictorial and moral suggestions shut up in old snatches of nursery doggrel; such fragments, for example, as the following:

Little boy blue,
Come, blow me your horn,

The sheep's in the meadows,
The cow's in the corn.

And here we have a scene in which the landscape is full of the subject, illustrated in all its details with striking effect. Again:

Here we are on Tom Tickler's ground, Picking up gold and silver! The beauty of the group of children filling their laps in the foreground, and the sketch of open sward bounded by grand old trees beyond, exhibit an imagination rich in resources. The treatment of all these subjects is luxuriant and suggestive; and every page presents an evidence of genius drawing exquisite forms and thoughtful designs out of the simplest and, apparently, the most limited materials. Never were children's fancies so artistically elevated and idealized before; never were there such dreams of lady-birds and wild flowers; never were the legends of the play-ground expanded into such fascinating pictures. This is a book which children can never exhaust, which they will open again and again with renewed pleasure, and which, while it fills their eyes with delight, cannot fail to reach their hearts by disclosing to them a new world of emotions.

And this brings us to the pleasantest part of our gossip. We have not done with the fairies yet, wise and practical as we have grown. Not only have we a complete edition of the Fairy Legends and Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, now collected and translated for the first time from the original Danish, but an original English venture in the same region, entitled New Tales from Faëry Land. It is not out of any depreciation of our native skill in these matters that we must frankly say we prefer the former. Indeed, there is no reasonable excuse for making any comparison between them, only that they appear at the same time, and profess to deal with the same class of subjects. Andersen's tales are written with a poetical feeling and a profound humanity which are special to himself; while this new batch from Fairydom possesses no particular merits of any kind. The old machinery is reproduced; but it does not work as easily as it

used to do. We have the transformations of the pantomime without the surprise or the illusion. But the intention is good; and as there is enough of the wonderful to keep curiosity alive, and we are conscious everywhere of the presence of a pure and cheerful spirit, we become more reconciled as we proceed; and, being desirous of encouraging this sort of literature, we arrive at last at the amiable conclusion, that the book will furnish pleasant reading for the holidays.

Of a different order from any of those we have glanced at, and in all respects the most ambitious giftbook of the season, is Mrs. Hervey's Pathway of the Fawn. The story is elaborate, the characters are sketched in with considerable power, and a solemn interest and poetical grandeur reign over the development of the action. The scene is laid on the Rhine, amongst the old castles and haunted mountains, and the tone of the writing is inspired with the traditionary feeling of a strain of legendary music. The flavour of the dark German romance is communicated to the narrative at once, by the description with which it opens, of a carouse on the last night of the year in one of the feudal fastnesses which are now reduced to a mass of crumbling stones, standing up in broken outlines against the horizon. The guests have been discussing the superstitions of the season, and the master of the revel, affecting to throw off the influence of the hour, rises and flings open the casement to listen for the chimes of the distant cathedral. The picture is bold and striking.

Not a breath stirred, not a star was visible. But down, far down the rocky steep, lay the ancient city at its foot, with all her innumerable lights reflected in the waters of the darkened Rhineso many witnesses of the anxious and breathless watchers that awaited the signal of another birth to time; a year for hope, for love-young voices, and old graves.

At last the finger approached the point of twelve-neared, all but touched it.

Every glass had been filled to the brim, and every man stood ready, his eye fixed on the numeral figure, to hail with one prolonged cheer the crowning of the hour.

At this moment of intense silence,

when the hand of the dial had all but marked the appointed stroke; while the heart itself seemed to pause, so still were its beatings; and when, had a feather dropped, it would have startled the listeners; suddenly-whence or from what quarter of the globe it came no man knew-suddenly, a wild rush of air, perfectly indescribable save by the term a gasp, a shudder of wind, swept past the casement!

It scarcely sounded before it was gone, dying as suddenly as it rose.

Every man started, looked on his neighbour, and turned pale.

Ernest Engelhertz and Wilhelm von Fern, the believer and the sceptic, gazed into each other's eyes. The face of Ernest was pale, but calm; the aspect of his entertainer was that of one suddenly arrested for some crime.

Hark!

Out of this incident springs the dramatic business of the story, and out of this ominous prelude the final moral. It cannot be compressed without injustice; but the reader may learn, and still keep his zest for the book, that the youth who thus passes out into the bleak midnight from his father's roof, adopts this terrible resolve in the hope of touching his father's conscience, and redeeming him, by that last appeal to the only vulnerable point in his affections, from a crime of long years, and of deep domestic wrong. The scenes in the artist's studio in the mountain, the placing in the old castle the statues that are to awaken the guilty man to remorse, the melting down of his heart at last, the ultimate restitution of the rights he had withheld from his kindred, and the passages of love that grow up through these events, are not only

full of interest in their progress, but related with unusual grace and feeling. The conception is replete with moral beauty, possessing the fascination of a genuine Teutonic legend, liberated from the gloom and mysticism which too often darken the fables that are native to that soil.

Although this is not a fairy story, but a human allegory, nor a German story, except in the skill with which the poetical atmosphere of the scene is preserved, it shows to some extent the influence which the German spirit has exercised over this department of English fiction. The Germans understand this kind of lore better than we do, especially in all that concerns the fairies. But there is a line of demarcation to be drawn between the fairyland of North and South Germany. In the North, all the old traditions are kept in their original purity, and rarely trespassed upon or meddled with; it is in the Black Forest, and in the German valleys of Switzerland, and round by Alsace, that new fairy stories are invented and cultivated with ardour. Germany is essentially the land of children's books, and in the character of these books we have abbreviated, as in a microcosm, the character of the people. The moment a German sees a child, his first thought is to teach him something, and he sets about it at once; and being of a good-natured and genial turn of mind, he tries to make it as pleasant as he can, and so it inevitably takes the shape of a parable, or an allegory, or a wonderful quaint exaggeration of some sort. It will therefore be invariably found, that in anything

pleasant which a German writes for the use of children, there will be something conveyed in the way of instruction, while everything intended for instruction is, in like manner, thrown into a disguise of amuse

ment.

Now, in England, on the other hand, the story-book is the reflection of that mixture of affectionate pampering and moral training which prevail everywhere amongst us, contradistinguished from the philosophizing spirit of the Germans. A German story-book creams over, in the midst of its weird and fantastic imagery, with dogmatism-the fancy and the philosophy bubble up together. An English story-book, on the contrary, is nothing but a storybook, with a plain-sailing moral occasionally tacked to it; and is all the better when there is none, except that which is inseparable from the web and woof of the plot. In France, different from both, there are no such things as story-books, so to speak, because the French do not cultivate children. They dress them up, and twist their hair, and teach them to dance and roll their eyes, but it never enters into their wisdom to cultivate their moral faculties or their imaginations through the help of storybooks. The dearth of such things seems, however, to be felt by the children themselves, for Victor Hugo tells us, that, when he was going to Germany, his children begged of him to bring them home some stories from the Rhine; but he assures us that, not being able to find any there, he was forced to invent one to amuse them!

it, for want of a better. But I will at least follow the example of M. Guizot and the rest of the world, and give it a meaning of my own. I say, then, that civilization ought to mean, The enjoyment of liberty under difficulties, the greatest of all conceivable difficulties being a dense population. Now let us ask ourselves, whose privilege it is to inhabit the metropolis of England, or, as

used to do. We have the transformations of the pantomime without the surprise or the illusion. But the intention is good; and as there is enough of the wonderful to keep curiosity alive, and we are conscious everywhere of the presence of a pure and cheerful spirit, we become more reconciled as we proceed; and, being desirous of encouraging this sort of literature, we arrive at last at the amiable conclusion, that the book will furnish pleasant reading for the holidays.

Of a different order from any of those we have glanced at, and in all respects the most ambitious giftbook of the season, is Mrs. Hervey's Pathway of the Fawn. The story is elaborate, the characters are sketched in with considerable power, and a solemn interest and poetical grandeur reign over the development of the action. The scene is laid on the Rhine, amongst the old castles and haunted mountains, and the tone of the writing is inspired with the traditionary feeling of a strain of legendary music.

The flavour of

the dark German romance is communicated to the narrative at once, by the description with which it opens, of a carouse on the last night of the year in one of the feudal fastnesses which are now reduced to a mass of crumbling stones, standing up in broken outlines against the horizon. The guests have been discussing the superstitions of the season, and the master of the revel, affecting to throw off the influence of the hour, rises and flings open the casement to listen for the chimes

of the distant cathedral. The picture is bold and striking.

Not a breath stirred, not a star was visible. But down, far down the rocky steep, lay the ancient city at its foot, with all her innumerable lights reflected in the waters of the darkened Rhineso many witnesses of the anxious and breathless watchers that awaited the signal of another birth to time; a year for hope, for love-young voices, and old graves.

At last the finger approached the point of twelve-neared, all but touched it.

eye

Every glass had been filled to the brim, and every man stood ready, his fixed on the numeral figure, to hail with one prolonged cheer the crowning of the hour.

At this moment of intense silence,

when the hand of the dial had all but marked the appointed stroke; while the heart itself seemed to pause, so still were its beatings; and when, had a feather dropped, it would have startled the listeners; suddenly-whence or from what quarter of the globe it came no man knew-suddenly, a wild rush of air, perfectly indescribable save by the term a gasp, a shudder of wind, swept past the casement!

It scarcely sounded before it was gone, dying as suddenly as it rose.

Every man started, looked on his neighbour, and turned pale.

Ernest Engelhertz and Wilhelm von Fern, the believer and the sceptic, gazed into each other's eyes. The face of Ernest was pale, but calm; the aspect of his entertainer was that of one suddenly arrested for some crime.

Hark!

Without the door, along the corridor, like a spirit's tread, in the pause of the revel, is there heard no other sound? Hark!

Is there no other step on the outer floor that is sounding its last there! no music on the boards that shall miss its echo through all the long year that is newly born?

Hark!

Stealing down along the carved and gilded staircase; sweeping with light, quick step, but still guarded tread; from marble step to marble step, from carpeted landing to statued recess; halting here and there with breathless pause, then bounding on anew under the pres sure of the impulse from within,-passed a youth of apparently some sixteen sum

mers.

Out of this incident springs the dramatic business of the story, and out of this ominous prelude the final moral. It cannot be compressed without injustice; but the reader may learn, and still keep his zest for the book, that the youth who thus passes out into the bleak midnight from his father's roof, adopts this terrible resolve in the hope of touching his father's conscience, and redeeming him, by that last appeal to the only vulnerable point in his affections, from a crime of long years, and of deep domestic wrong. The scenes in the artist's studio in the mountain, the placing in the old castle the statues that are to awaken the guilty man to remorse, the melting down of his heart at last, the ultimate restitution of the rights he had withheld from his kindred, and the passages of love that grow up through these events, are not only

full of interest in their progress, but related with unusual grace and feeling. The conception is replete with moral beauty, possessing the fascination of a genuine Teutonic legend, liberated from the gloom and mysticism which too often darken the fables that are native to that soil.

Although this is not a fairy story, but a human allegory, nor a German story, except in the skill with which the poetical atmosphere of the scene is preserved, it shows to some extent the influence which the German spirit has exercised over this department of English fiction. The Germans understand this kind of lore better than we do, especially in all that concerns the fairies. But there is a line of demarcation to be drawn between the fairyland of North and South Germany. In the North, all the old traditions are kept in their original purity, and rarely trespassed upon or meddled with; it is in the Black Forest, and in the German valleys of Switzerland, and round by Alsace, that new fairy stories are invented and cultivated with ardour. Germany is essentially the land of children's books, and in the character of these books we have abbreviated, as in a microcosm, the character of the people. The moment a German sees a child, his first thought is to teach him something, and he sets about it at once; and being of a good-natured and genial turn of mind, he tries to make it as pleasant as he can, and so it inevitably takes the shape of a parable, or an allegory, or a wonderful quaint exaggeration of some sort. It will therefore be invariably found, that in anything

pleasant which a German writes for the use of children, there will be something conveyed in the way of instruction, while everything intended for instruction is, in like manner, thrown into a disguise of amusement.

Now, in England, on the other hand, the story-book is the reflection of that mixture of affectionate pampering and moral training which prevail everywhere amongst us, contradistinguished from the philosophizing spirit of the Germans. A German story-book creams over, in the midst of its weird and fantastic imagery, with dogmatism-the fancy and the philosophy bubble up together. An English story-book, on the contrary, is nothing but a story. book, with a plain-sailing moral occasionally tacked to it; and is all the better when there is none, except that which is inseparable from the web and woof of the plot. In France, different from both, there are no such things as story-books, so to speak, because the French do not cultivate children. They dress them up, and twist their hair, and teach them to dance and roll their eyes, but it never enters into their wisdom to cultivate their moral faculties or their imaginations through the help of storybooks. The dearth of such things seems, however, to be felt by the children themselves, for Victor Hugo tells us, that, when he was going to Germany, his children begged of him to bring them home some stories from the Rhine; but he assures us that, not being able to find any there, he was forced to invent one to amuse them!

it, for want of a better. But I will at least follow the example of M. Guizot and the rest of the world, and give it a meaning of my own. I say, then, that civilization ought to mean, The enjoyment of liberty under difficulties, the greatest of all conceivable difficulties being a dense population. Now let us ask ourselves, whose privilege it is to inhabit the metropolis of England.

28