anchorites implored protection against the evil Rakshasas, the enemies of gods and men, he armed himself in their defence. During this war, Ravana, the King of the Rakshasas, having artfully disguised himself as a hermit, entered the dwelling of Rama, and carried off the beautiful Sita, in spite of her supplications for mercy. Indignant at this outrage, the birds and beasts of the forest, one and all, promised to succour this Rama, who had ever shown a tender regard for their safety. Even his terrible grief for the loss of his beloved Sita did not render the hero indifferent to the wrongs of others. In his pursuit of Ravana, having encountered the mournful ape, Sugriva, whom the unjust suspicions of Bali pursued from place to place, he espoused the cause of the innocent monkey; and when the unnatural Bali was about to murder his younger brother, he slew this unjust monarch of apes, and gave the empire into the hands of Sugriva. agile lords of the forest. Hanuman, the prime minister of Sugriva, the daring son of the wind, having traversed at one bound the seething and turbulent ocean, discovered Sita, confined in the island of Lanka. Thus was Rama recompensed for not having disdained the affection of inferior creatures. Having marched with Lakshmana and Sugriva, and the whole army of apes, the magnanimous Dasarathide slew the Rakshasa in battle, and gave to his vanquished enemy the obsequies befitting a king. Then the fourteen years of exile to which the promise had bound him having expired, he returned, with his joyous Sita, to the happy town of Ayodhya. There, sharing the empire with Bharata, the son of Kaikeyi, who had nobly reigned in his absence, the illustrious Rama seeks to ensure the happiness of his people by a wise and merciful government. An obedient son, a loyal brother, a chaste spouse, a faithful ally, a fearless yet a merciful enemy, disdainful of none, but filled with kindly consideration for all living creatures, tell me, O saintly anchorite! does not this kingly Rama wear a crown of transplendent virtues?'-Narada then asked Valmiki,Was there any one to be found in all the three worlds worthy to hymn the praise of such a hero?-'Alas!' said Valmiki, there is no one worthy.—But Narada insisted he lives, this inspired poet, and I charge you, O Valmiki! to discover him.'-Then Valmiki went to perform his ablutions in the river, and while there he beheld two beautiful herons sporting on the shore. On a sudden, a pitiless shaft from the bow of an archer pierced one of these winged lovers to the heart, so that she died. The sight of it oppressed Valmiki with grief. He burst forth into lamentation, and his words as they gushed from his lips took a measured cadence, and formed themselves into verses Thus he won the devoted attachment of these which he could not help continually repeating. The same day, the mighty Brahma himself came to visit the meek anchorite, and hear him converse of virtue and knowledge. But when Valmiki opened his mouth, all that he could utter was that same rhythmical lamentation for the dead heron. He was abashed, thinking that the god might suppose he spoke in mockery. But the eternal Brahma smiled, and said, 'Happy art thou, Valmiki, who hast found favour in the sight of the ardent goddess of eloquence! The divine quality of pity has drawn to thee the burning kiss of the capricious Saraswati! Up then, O man, who hast tasted an immortal's love; speak forth the divine breath which inspires thee! Sing to the listening ages the wondrous history of Rama, whose ineffable beauty shall not fade till the stars grow dim in heaven.' Thus did Valmiki, in whose heart dwelt the love of universal nature, receive the divine gift of Poesy, in exchange for tears of pity." Ancient Manorial Customs, Tenures, Services, Privileges, Serjeantries, Grants, Fines, &c., in the County of Essex. By Richard Stephen Charnock, Ph.D. (Longmans & Co.) IF Dr. Charnock had cared to do it, he might have compiled a book which would not only have amused the county of Essex, but have won the approval of antiquaries, and have been welcomed by the public generally. As it is, he flings down a heap of notices, and leaves his readers to make the best of it. There are some good things in the heap, and, as samples of old times, they are worth preserving; but there is little order in the book, and we cannot reduce the confusion to orderly arrangement. We can only notice remarkable instances, as we rather fall upon than meet with them. We find in this way that there were as evil things in the good old times as the more modern window and chimney taxes. When Maldon people laid rain-pipes on to their houses, they were rated for the luxury. It was worse than this at Writtle. Every tenant there who had his fore-door opening to Greenbury, paid a halfpenny to the lord of the manor for the prospect. This annual tax was facetiously called "Green Silver." This may recall to some memories that when the Roman people were compelled to build their walls, the work had the name of tasks or Monia (pro Munia), and Moenia became the slang word for "walls," serving to commemorate the compulsion under which they were erected. If the Essex lords always received duty, it was not always, the Essex poor that contributed. Some of the feudal nobles obtained no unimportant part of the useful adornment of their houses, particularly table-linen and plate, as fees for services rendered to the Crown. Dr. Charnock gives several instances of these perquisites, by which stately families added to their stateliness. He is not, however, always correct in his dates. He assigns the coronation of George the Third and Queen Charlotte to the year 1815, when the long reign of both was coming to an end. For enjoyment of perquisites and privileges accorded by royalty, there was a tribute of acknowledgment paid again by the nobleman or gentleman. The quaint rectory, the ancient church and the venerable trees at Upminster are connected in most minds with Derham, that learned rector who studied and wrote about the stars, and who had the honour of being sneered at by Voltaire. cessor of Derham, the Rev. Philip Holden, is perhaps not aware how his village was held in the time long before Derham. John Engayne possessed the manor by the serjeantry of keeping harriers for the King's use, whenever his Grace was minded to hunt the hare with hound and horn in the neighbourhood of Upminster. It is very singular to find an Essex earl and an Essex tailor holding land on the same service, as if the craftsman were as good a gentleman as the earl was a noble. Adomar de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and Roger, "sometime tailor to our Lord the King," held, the one Walbury, the other a carucate of land in Hallingbury, by the same service: each presented yearly to the King, or the King's Exchequer, a silver needle. For Roger the tailor this was appropriate enough; but how came the almost royal De Valence to be measured with the same measure as the tailor? It has often been said, that the tenants of ecclesiastical lords or ladies held under easier termis than if they had kings or laymen for their masters. It was otherwise in Essex, where the abbesses especially pressed heavily on the lower order of tenants. The seemingly quiet abbesses made these poor fellows run on errands, go long journeys, carry heavy burthens, and pay for their own food, though they The latest suc gave them no wage. An abbess exacted all this with the at once pious and imperious air of a Bedouin, who, at the very gate of Mecca, will seat himself by a labourer who is about to dine; seize his dinner, with a cry of "Please God!" and, having eaten it, will give the poor wretch his blessing, and then stride away with the pious form of thanksgiving, “God is great!" Traces of many of the old Essex customs may be found in forms preserved at the present day. In the olden time, "Lawless Court" was The tenants of the manor held at Rochford. of Raleigh met the steward in the dark, paid their rents with a whisper, and received their acquittances scrawled with a coal. For every hour a tenant was absent he forfeited to his lord double his rent. The "Whispering Court" was held, with modified forms, within half a dozen years last past, and perhaps is held still. In the latest times, the presence of one tenant, who answered for all, was accepted as representing the whole of the tenantry. It was very necessary, down to a recent period, for any one intending to occupy land in any county to inform himself of the "custom" of the manor of which he was about to be a tenant. He did not need to trouble himself about gavelkind or borough English: by the first, the property of an estate owner was divided, at his decease, equally among his children; borough English made the younger son or the younger children succeed to the inheritance. What concerned tenants was the heriot, or the forfeit paid by the tenant (on the decease of the lord) to the heir who entered on the estate. The fine was generally the best horse or head of horned cattle in the tenant's stable at the lord's death. It is to be remembered, too, that, in some counties, if an occupant let a part of the land he rented to a subtenant, and the lord of the manor died, then tenant and sub-tenant paid the full heriot. Each had to give up his best horse or best cow to the heir, or to the widow. It was not at all uncommon,—and that not many years since,— when the lord of a manor was dying and a manorial tenant was known to have a superior horse in his stable, to keep the condition of the lord a secret. The stable was, meanwhile, closely watched by the steward's agents, in order that the coveted prize might be pounced upon as soon as the signal was given of the lord's demise. The law has swept away all obligations connected with heriots and other customs. A man driving a cart over a certain part of Greenbury may, for aught we know, be challenged at a tollbar, but he will not have to pay 4d. to the lord. The men of Wivenhoe may marry their daughters out of the manor liberties, if such there be, without being mulcted in a handful of marks for the permission; and the lasses and ladies of other Essex manors, be they bond or free, may add to the population of the county without having to disburse, for "childwit," the heavy premium of 3s. 4d. Marriage, and what the elder Mr. Weller called "the consekence of the manœuvre," brings us to Dunmow and the Flitch of Bacon. We hoped to have found something new on this custom, but we have been disappointed. Dr. Charnock has nothing new to tell us. We only know that Æneas and the white sow, with her thirty pigs, which he saw at Alba Longa, had nothing to do with it, —that the custom was not confined to England, nor even to Dunmow in England. A flitch, or a gammon, was no small prize to offer to a married rustic couple, with whom meat diet was not often, or easily, to be had. The idea of the flitch must have helped to keep peace, and that was an advantage in rude times. What remains of the old custom now is mere mountebankism. The memory of it survives in dramatic literature, in Bates's rattling operetta, "The Flitch of Bacon,' in which Edwin and Parsons and Bannister first made the sides of "the little house" in the Haymarket shake with laughter in the now far-off year of 1778. The English Governess at the Siamese Court: being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok. By Anna Harriette Leonowens. With Illustrations. (Trübner & Co.) WE rise from a perusal of this volume with a feeling of regret that it has been allowed to see the light. Its author enjoyed exceptional opportunities for supplying information not less valuable than interesting about the little Asiatic monarchy with whose court she was connected for nearly five years and a quarter, but we are sorry to confess our disappointment at the result. If truth be of any importance at all, and we think it to be peculiarly important where writers treat of countries and events of which the reading world outside can know but little,-it will be easy, as we believe, to show that the inaccuracy of the work now under consideration renders it not only valueless but even dangerously misleading. Want of space will prevent us from furnishing more than a few examples to support our views; but the untrustworthiness of which we complain characterizes the publication from end to end. The author frequently introduces Siamese words and phrases, and is careful to accompany them with English translations; we shall select one or two of these for examination. Nothing is more common in Siam than those gracefully pyramidal structures, known as Fhra-cha-dees, which the pious have erected in the neighbourhood of the temples. But the term, Phra-chă-dee signifies, not "the Lord's delight," as the author translates it, but "a holy building." "Dee chai" means "glad at heart," but chă-dee is a corruption of the Sanskrit "Chaitya," a term applied to early Buddhist temples, altars, tombs, and such like objects. The ancient Siamese capital is known as Ajudhia," a title which is rendered on page 20 as "the abode of the gods." Now the verb "Yudh" in Sanskrit means "to fight"; and from it is formed the adjective, A-Yodhya" ("not to be warred against "), a name applied to the old metropolis of Sian, and to the modern province of Oude. It is related on page 46 that the Prime Minister of Siam called his son "My Chi" ("not so "); that the mother altered this name to "Ny Chi" ("Master So"); and that afterwards the boy's adopted mother changed his title a third time 66 Phra Nah Why" ("the Lord endures"). Now "Mai Chai" certainly means "It is not so," but we have heard of no one in Siam who was ever called by so silly a name. "Nai," meaning "Master" (herus) is the ordinary term used in addressing a gentleman. Hence, supposing that there were any one whose name was Măi Chai," he would be known from the first as "Nai Măi Chai." "Nai Chai," how ever, is a genuine Siamese name; but the "Chai" here used means "the heart," and is a totally different word, written in different characters, from the word "chai," signifying "it is so.' As to the third name, "Phra Nah Why," "Phra Nai" is the title given to each of the four head pages attached to the Siamese Court; and "Wai" is a name denoting "fixedness," "strength," or "stability." No adopted mother could confer the title "Phra Nai," an honour which only the King has the right to bestow. In fact, the whole story is, as we hope we have clearly explained, impossible, and therefore untrue. "Phra-batt (page 54) does not mean "golden-footed," but simply "the sacred foot." "San Luang" (page 100), which signifies, not "the royal judges," but "the King's Court," is described as a secret Council or Court, holding "dark and terrifying sittings" twice a-week at midnight, a-week at midnight, in the palace. The Supreme Council of State, which is made up of the two kings, the six highest nobles, and of the two kings, the six highest nobles, and one or two princes of the blood, is called the Sena-bodi," and does assemble in the palace by night; but the "San Luang" is simply a court of justice which sits by day, sometimes in the palace, and sometimes elsewhere; its functions are purely judicial, and under the entire control of one of the highest officers in the State. mean One word more, and we will pass on to consider other points in the book. At page 146 a golden basin is mentioned, under the name "Mangala Baghavat-thong," or "the golden circlet of power." Thong" certainly does gold," but the author has rushed in with a rendering of "Mangala Baghavat," where we think that those wiser than she is might have feared to tread. Mangala," which means "auspicious," is the term applied to the objects most prized as royal emblems; and "Bhagavat "is one of the titles of Buddha, usually translated "adorable," but even Burnouf doubts its precise signification. In the 28th chapter and in other passages in the book the writer gives some account of the geography of Siam, and the topography of its capital. First of Bangkok: on page 130 we are told that from "Paklat Beeloo" (which should be "Paklat Lang," for "Beeloo" is not Siamese, but the English "below"), "a great canal penetrates directly to the heart of Bangkok, cutting off thirty miles from the circuitous river route." The Paklat Creek is two miles long, and cuts off not thirty miles, but nine; it does not penetrate to the heart of Bangkok, for its upper outlet at "Paklat boon" is more than three miles distant even from the outskirts of the town. At page 137 we learn that the New Road"extends from Bangkok to Paknam about forty miles," whereas, in truth and in fact, the New Road has never been carried beyond the immediate vicinity of Bangkok, and it terminates many miles short of Paknam: a town which is distant about thirteen miles in a straight line from the capital, and not more than nineteen if we follow the bends of the river. At page 232 this "matter-of-fact woman," for so she has styled herself (p. 200), informs us that the late second king of Siam erected a substantially fortified palace, afterwards called a stronghold (p. 274), and a castle (p. 233), at Saraburee, a city in the vicinity of Chiengmai. Now Saraburee is a town something under 100 miles distant from Bangkok, while Chiengmai lies on an entirely different river, and is more than 300 miles away. In fact, a journey from Saraburee to Chiengmai would, under ordinary circumstances, require about three months for its accomplishment. The second king's resi dence at Saraburee was not fortified at all, but consisted of a very unpretentious countryhouse. The really interesting passages in this work are those which refer to the late Supreme King of Siam, and the quaint specimens which are given of His Majesty's English compositions will well repay perusal. Years of study had enriched his mind with a vast fund of information, and those who knew him well could dis cover an under-current of dry humour which even in his most serious moments he found it impossible to restrain. We scarcely think that a man so full of domestic affection deserved the harsh epithets which the author has frequently applied to him. Let the reader judge whether "all natural affection seems to be expelled" (p. 119) from the monarch who described the loss of his "Royal amiable daughter" in the words quoted at page 121. He met death with wondrous dig nity in the month of October, 1868, and the English Governess, who resided at his Court, has not hesitated to cast a shadow on his memory, and to stigmatize his conduct as the head of a great family as an abiding disgrace to his name (page 244). She was once herself in Siam at the point of death, but this "envious and cruel despot," this "barbarian suspicious and cruel," behaved with more kindness towards her than she has shown to him, for he voluntarily remarked, as we have good authority for stating, "that Mrs. Leonowens, indeed, was dying, but that it should be his care to provide for her little boy." the We regret that we have space left only for a very few words on the "excursion to Naghkon Watt," related in chapter 29. The ruins of the Old Cambojan Empire are equally magnificent and numerous; but we suspect the author, though speaking as an eye-witness, paid but a flying visit to the remains which she has undertaken to describe. Yet, as she has herself seen Phra Nakhon Watt, she should not have fallen into the errors which are to be found in her narrative; not that she was ill pleased with the spectacle: she represents herself as counting the pillars of the Temple (page 312), and finding fresh objects of wonder in each new spot that she explored (page 308). One of the most remarkable objects among ruins is a statue, pretty nearly the size of life, and supposed to represent "the leprous king," which has been figured and described by the late naturalist, M. H. Mouhot, and was also photographed by Mr. Thomson. This piece of sculpture stands unsheltered in the lonely forest, at one corner of a spacious sub-structure of brick and stone, above which the ancient Cambojan monarchs are said to have reared their palace. It is not at the temple known as Phra Nakhon Watt at all, but about four miles off, in the centre of the former capital; yet we find that the authoress first speaks of it as standing in one of the corridors of Phra Nakhon Watt (page 305), and further on she states that it is of "moderately colossal" size, and "set up in a sort of pavilion" at the same temple. MAJOR WHYTE MELVILLE always writes like a gentleman. There is a pleasant optimism about him which is very refreshing in these high-pressure days, and which sensationalists and moralists would do well to copy. His characters are apt to be selected from the ornamental rather than the useful ranks of society; he has a hankering after the flesh-pots of Belgravia, and perhaps devotes an undue proportion of his novels to sporting life and anecdotes; but this arises so evidently from his keen appreciation of the good things of this life, and his kindly aptitude for seeing the best side of people of all sorts, that the bitterest iconoclast might refrain from censuring his choice. Bad as Jenkins is, there is a cant against Jenkins which is in no better taste; and it is good that our author should afford at least one example of high life treated without vulgarity, and sporting and amusement without undue technicality or slang on the one side, or ignorant depreciation and pious horror on the other. In the present story, as frequently before, we find our sympathies enlisted in favour of many different types of imperfect human nature: ladies on the borders of fast life, self-indulgent dandies, impecunious adventurers, et hoc genus omne; but in every case it is the shred of something better at the core, with which we sympathize, and which is so skilfully developed in the course of the story as in the end to outweigh the evil with which each character is clogged. The fierce, false adventuress, winning back her womanly tenderness by the sick-bed of her dying boy; the selfish woman of the world, thawed into a veritable first love by the steady warmth of an admirer who has little but his thorough loyalty to recommend him; that admirer himself, elevated by an honest purpose that is stronger and holier than brilliancy or wisdom; the old woman, dignified by her affection for her ward; the rowdy gambler, by his passionate attachment to his son; even worthless old Sir Henry, and blundering Frank Vanguard, in so far as they are pure and honest in the one true passion of their lives,-combine to present to the reader, where he only looked for pleasure, a group of little sermons effectively and unobtrusively conveyed. There is plenty of good description and easy conversation in the book; and we would especially direct the reader's attention to the delicious love scene in which Mrs. Lascelles surrenders her hand at last to Goldthred's constancy. The touch about the "hideous yellow gown" is eminently natural. Not less amusing, perhaps, is the swagger of the American Picard: "In ten days, Captain, ten days at most, I'd every horse in my squadron as steady as a time-piece, and as handy as a cotton-picker. I wish I could have shown you 'Stonewall.'. . . Before I'd ridden him a week, he'd lift a glove like a retriever, and walk on his hind legs like a poodle. I could tell you things of that horse that I'll defy you, or any man, to believe!" Mr. Picard's talent might be valuable to the Minister for War. The not inconsiderable portion of the public which can read no book that does not contain something about a horse, and apparently welcomes any rubbish that is enlivened by the presence of that noble animal, will hail Mr. Craven's present work with enthusiasm. It contains a great deal about a horse, and the animal, as is so often the case, is of a far higher type than the human cattle by which it is surrounded. The real gist of the book, which bears the same relation to a novel as an entertainment like 'The Streets of London,' for instance, bears to the legitimate drama, is contained in the full, true, particular, and realistic narrative of how a clique of scoundrels, having attempted to prevent the victory of Margrave for the Ascot Cup by suborning the jockey of that honest animal, are thwarted by the vigilance of Charles Delval, the hero of the tale, who wreaks a characteristic revenge by taking the longest odds he can obtain and personally chastizing one of the members of the gang. Less easy is it for our hero and his friends, who on all points but that of horseflesh seem curiously obtuse, to unravel the❘ wiles of the extraordinary woman called by gods the Margravine, and by men Mrs. Stanley, who has been the real instigator of the Margrave plot, and who in her suburban lurkingplace weaves plans of direr purpose for the ruin of confiding swains. It is fortunate for Corinthians of the Delval and Enbourne calibre, that sorceresses so potent and unscrupulous are rarely to be found; and well for the credit of English womankind, that the agility of a Centaur and the malevolence of a fiend are seldom clothed with bewitching feminine beauty. It would not be fair to our author to unravel the details of his astounding plot; suffice it to say that it is like nothing to be found in nature, and therefore will, no doubt, prove as attractive as the realistic descriptions of high and low fast life will be found for the opposite reason. It is needless to say that the hero is muscular and healthy, that he is "as nearly as possible" (probably exactly) six feet in height, that he is said to be a paragon of all manly excellencies, and that his associates combine the highest social position with the habits and language of ungentlemanly and uneducated snobs. The extraordinary circumlocution employed by all concerned, whenever they cease to speak their natural dialect of slang, constitutes one peculiarity of a work which in other respects has little to distinguish it from other specimens of its class. 'A Visit to my Discontented Cousin' is a short story, or novel in one volume, purporting to be the relation of a visit paid by a briefless barrister, the narrator, to a wealthy cousin in the country, and the events that befell therefrom. Incidentally are introduced stories, discussions, and one essay, somewhat after the manner of Mr. Helps, whose writings, espe cially Friends in Council,' have, we think, to some extent, suggested the present work. Here, however, the narrative part predominates; we have even a subordinate story of a lost husband and a dishonest lawyer, with which the personages of the tale become involved: the narrator ultimately marrying the widow of the former, and exposing the machinations of the latter. Barring an unnecessary bit of supernaturalism, which is also apparently an after thought, the story is well put together, and contains some good anecdotes and sensible remarks, and may serve very well to occupy a vacant hour. Tales of adventure and heroism are always popular among a large class of Englishmen, as the success of Mr. Lever and Mr. Grant shows. The works of these authors, however, may be said to have arrived at the afternoon if not the evening of their day, and there is evidently room for a new writer of military novels. Our author,-who we believe is entitled to the prefix of Major,-the excellent special correspondent of the Daily News, has offered himself as a candidate for public favour in the capacity of a military novel writer. His attempt promises to be successful: it certainly merits success. A Highlander, he describes Highland life with accuracy, a soldier, he depicts a soldier's career with spirit. The backbone of his story is Havelock's march to the relief of Lucknow and the deeds of the 78th Highlanders. We have no hesitation in asserting that the events, quorum," ," he may say, pars magna fui," have never been described with more spirit than by Major Forbes. Moreover, exciting and romantic as the narrative is, we believe it to be strictly accurate and devoid of exaggeration. We have in the book before us history illustrated, instead of, as is generally the case in historical romances, history perverted. 66 The plot of Drawn from Life' is simple enough, and it differs from that of most other novels in that love plays but a very subordinate part in it. Hector Macdonald, the only son of a "dour" Highland gentleman of property, falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a neighbouring minister, a man of as good blood as his own. Hector's father, who has a bitter feud with the minister, insists on the son's giving up his lady-love on penalty of being turned out of the house. On this Hector decamps, and proceeding to London enlists in the 30th Light Dragoons. An interesting and life-like account of the young recruit's experiences and life both at Westminster and the depôt at Maidstone is given. In due course he is despatched to Bangalore, to join the headquarters of his regiment, where he soon obtains the rank of corporal. After being reduced, and narrowly escaping a flogging on a.false accusation of theft, he attracts the attention of the Commander-in-Chief of Madras, and is appointed his orderly. About this time the Indian Mutiny breaks out, and Hector, who has been noticed by that glorious soldier Neill, succeeds in obtaining permission to be attached to that officer's regiment as extra orderly-room clerk. The account of Neill's untiring energy, and his determination to pass over or through any body or thing in the way of his purpose, is well told. An exquisite morsel is the passage describing how Neill dealt with the insolent and obstructive stationmaster at Howrah. That ill-conditioned official wished to start the train before Neill's men had entered the carriages, so Neill took military possession of both station-master and train,- -a treatment that, however arbitrary it may seem to civilians, was justified by the peril of the country. An amusing attempt to parody Neill's action was made twelve years later by the colonel of another old "Company's" regiment, though a state of perfect peace then prevailed. Having embarked all his men in the train, he, without deigning to communicate with the station-master, desired his orderly bugler to sound "the advance." The "advance" was duly sounded, but the train remained immovable. Astonished beyond measure, the colonel then ordered the bugler to sound "the double," but still the train did not stir; and he was at length obliged to recognize the fact that in time of peace military authority is powerless outside the camp. To return to our subject. Major Forbes takes us with Neill to Azimghur, from Azimghur to Allahabad, in the fierce June sun, when the gallant soldier could be barely kept alive by frequent draughts of champagne and water; and shows us how through his energy Allahabad was saved, and Havelock enabled to advance on Cawnpore. Neill, most truly, we think, is represented by Major Forbes as the hero of the campaign which terminated in the march into the residency at Lucknow. Havelock was, he says, too fond of making long addresses to his men. The Highlanders especially objected to his somewhat pompous prosiness. We commend especially to the reader the account of Neill's avenging fury; but it would be unfair both to the author and the reader to extract any of the exciting passages which abound in this book, or to detail the rest of the plot. We cordially recommend this book, for it is what it claims to be 'Drawn from Life.' ILLUSTRATED GIFT-BOOKS. ONE of the long series of those splendidly-prepared volumes which are now before us is known to the reader of Mr. Froude's "Miscellanies" by the title of The Cat's Pilgrimage (Edinburgh, Edmonston & Douglas). It is now republished, with illustrations by "J. B." The text of the humorous and wise-hearted brochure calls for no second notice at our hands; the illustrations exhibit considerable sense of fun in the artist's mind, but, being defective in execution, they look less estimable than they really are. Among the illustrated publications of the season there are but one or two which in interest and intellectual merit can compare with Cartoons (from Punch), by John Tenniel, second series (Bradbury & Evans). These designs are arranged chronologically, from August, 1862, to the present time, and comprise references to parliamentary affairs and the contest between parties as represented by Lord Palmerston, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Lowe, and others; also to foreign politics, the Roman question, the deposed monarchs Otho, Bomba and Napoleon the Third; that" lover of peace" and "highly-patriotic ruler" the present Emperor of Russia, whose savage pacification of Poland is not, in these pages, however it may be elsewhere, forgotten. Dire vaticinations appear, from that of Charles the First pointing out Strafford's block and axe to the "great Count" who at this time, according to English newspaper correspondents, "strides" about the streets of Versailles. One of these grim visions has already come to pass in Napoleon the Third's case, as represented by 'A Vision on the Way, "Beware!" in which the ghost of Napoleon the First appears to Napoleon the Third and his son while on their way to the Rhine, and that burning of a railway-station at Sarrebruck, which was so characteristically treated by both French and Prussians, the one side describing it as an atrocity not much less wicked than the burning of Bazeilles; the other, melo-dramatically, as "a baptism of fire." Mr. Tenniel's idea is a fine and impressive one, and it is not mannered, as some of his quasi-impressive designs have been, e. g. 'The Order of the Day, or Unions and Fenians'— a masked, torch-bearing female figure, with "Murder" written on her baldric; two knots of brutal ruffians, of Sheffield, Manchester and Ireland, preparing their murder tools. The mistake in this design is fundamental, for the idea itself is wrong, there being nothing grand, or even grandiose, in cowardly butchery, which only savage instincts can prompt. The Check to King Mob'-Britannia grasping the throat of the "Reform League," to which was attributed the destruction of Hyde Park railings, is another of Mr. Tenniel's errors, and in still worse taste is the association of the Hyde Park riot with the blowing up of Clerkenwell Prison. On the other hand, there is extraordinary vigour in the noble figure of "Paris" standing to her guns, with the motto "Aux armes, Citoyens!" in the cartoon styled 'France, Sept. 4, 1870'; and in the sterner, if less fierce, 'Paris, 1870,' where the crowned city of the Seine levels a gun from her battlements. Many of these designs are severe satires, such as cannot but affect the minds of men in future times, when they are judging those who move amongst us now. They are reflections of those popular convictions which are said to be unerring in the main, however mistaken they may be in respect to details. If such is the case, all we can say is, that the prospect here prepared for eyes of the future is not a pleasing one as to many of the men of the time, to Count Bismarck, the King William, to Louis Napoleon, or Mr. Robert Lowe, to Lord Palmerston, to Mr. Jacob Bright, or the Pope. Ruthless craft, hypocrisy and insatiate greed, mean and cruel cunning, charlatanry and self-sufficiency should dread such a satirist. Of course we need not, for obvious reasons, say that Mr. Tenniel's private opinions would not have led him to give to the King of Prussia those glittering, ravenous eyes, that hypocritical turn of the lips, that vast space of a chin of impudence which make the monarch's visage in 'Brigands dividing Spoil,' where Democracy,' in spectacles, standing for Northern Germany, and the Austrian Emperor, are deprived of the spoils of plundered Denmark. The same face appears in 'Two Frightful Examples,' where "King William's carelessness -or contempt for parliamentary liberty in Prussia provoked a reference to the downfall of the petty tyrants of Naples and Greece, November, 1862." Such is the motto of this design, the occult idea of which probably suggested the reference to the fate of Strafford, before alluded to. The same face appears, with eyes still more ravenous, in 'From the Great Pyramid,' where King William sees India "in the distance." Less excellent as a satire is the figure of the King of Prussia in 'Six of One and Half-a-dozen of the Other,' where he and Louis Napoleon protest with regard to the "Secret Treaty." But here comes in the sting of one of those texts to the prints, the vigour of which deserves attention. Says Prussia, defending himself, to John Bull, "Mein lieber Johann! you cannot believe I-a so respectable, so religious friend-connected by marriage also?-you cannot believe it!" "Connected by marriage also," is a touch almost as pregnant of sardonic fire as that which protests "religion"; nevertheless the figures are both of them bitterly satirical. We have a capital antithesis to William of Prussia in Mr. Robert Lowe, as presented here. Whatever may be Mr. Tenniel's impressions as to the former, it is impossible that the striking countenance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have produced in the artist's mind those ideas of cleverness and triumphant acuteness, almost craft, which are so vividly portrayed in the figure of the Chancellor as a mountebank, in 'No Deception this Time,' who produces the impossible pudding "Surplus" from the hat "Eudget,"-a reference, doubtless, to the so-called "five quarters' Income Tax," which, as men have been assured, no one will have to pay. See 'The Rival Conjurors.' The best of all the satires on the subject of this "cartoon" is 'Mean Time at Greenwich,' where the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with a hand in his breeches pocket, says, referring to the Whitebait Dinner, Economy, dear boys, economy! Tea and shrimps you like, but we really can't stand whitebait." if Let us pass these and other political satires of a displeasing sort, and of the gravest import, with which besides it is not within our province to deal. There is less to pain the observer in Madame Paris and the Valet-de-Sham,' where the great city rejects the attentions of M. de Persigny; there is ample pathos, and not a little kindliness in 'The Beadle and the Dane, where Earl Russell offers the King of Denmark half a loaf. The Englishman's face is admirable, especially as there is in the eyes a latent touch of self-contempt. Jack on the Crisis,' where two English sailors, presaging fighting with the Prussian navy, agree in "Blow it, Bill! we can't be expected to fight a lot of lubberly swabs like him. We'll kick 'em, if that 'll do." A Dress Rehearsal,' showing Mr. John Bright figuring before a Psyche in those "ministerial gar ments" of office which he had patriotically put on, is first-rate. Among other satires on individuals is that vigorous one on the Brighton Ritualistic parsons, Messrs. Purchas and his friends, the former of whom declares, in reply to the episcopal warning that what with one and the other of his follies he would set the Church on fire, that he would like to do so. The truculent face of the man in the embroidered cape, who, bearing a censer, doubles his fists like a rebellious school-boy, is inimitable. Two Girls of the Period,' one of whom humbly scrubs a school-room floor, while the other, in all the pride of dress, and attended by her "spiritual director," looks on amazed, is a drawing that will be fresh in many memories and connected with the case of "Saurin v. Starr and Kennedy." Social abuses are not omitted in this series: witness 'The Demon Butcher; or the real Rinderpest," with his wonderful head, like that of a dead ox; also 'The Real Trade Union,' when the knavish petty tradesman, inquiring of the cook at a house which the pair were accustomed to plunder, receives for answer, "No, Mr. Pickles, there ain't no horders, and things is come to a pretty pass! what with them Co-robberative Stores-and no presents-what's to become of us pore servants— let alone the tradespeople-goodness gracious only knows!" Mr. Pickles is "a picture." Öne turns with satisfaction from these subjects to those personations of men and classes with whom in his satirical vocation, Mr. Tenniel deals kindly. One knows, whether as satirist or man, he likes and respects Earl Russell, that he admires Mr. Gladstone, and, in the former capacity, that he had a regard, not unalloyed with something that was contemptuous, for Lord Palmerston. Upon General Garibaldi he looks as most of us do. There is something genial in the very "chaff" with which he greets the Pope himself, vide "Non Poss," with its motto, "Dear Brother Cumming-you may kiss my toe if you like, but you mustn't speechify." On all sides it is evident that Mr. Tenniel, since we last examined a large series of his works, has greatly improved in wit and in satiric and sardonic force, as well as in artistic power as to the last, see the fine drawing of the cannon in The American Juggernaut.' Still, we are glad to turn from reflections which are more or less distortions of facts, although witty, to a book of humour and innocent fun, or wit without an after-thought and retrospection. If that popular description of wit, that it is to be found in unexpected turns and freaks of fancy, whereby similarities are found dissimilar, and, above all, dissimilarities found similar, be true, then Mr. E. Lear is a master in wit. Apart from the definition, we believe the author of 'The Book of Nonsense' to be among the wittiest of the witty, and, more than that, among the most humorous of the humorous. Joyfully we welcome a sequel to 'The Book of Nonsense' in the present Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets (Bush). We wish we could reproduce the ineffable illustrations to the following verses as easily as we do the text of the lay of love, which is entitled 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat': The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea "O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are! The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon. How the Jumlies went to sea in a sieve, and said they didn't care, are things not to be told in brief; neither dare we tell 'What the Nutcrackers said to the Sugar Tongs.' We should like to relate the story of 'The Four Little Children,' who went to sea in a boat, with no more of crew than a small cat to steer and look after the craft, besides an elderly Quangle-Wangle to cook and make tea; also a large kettle. What the Quangle-Wangle did, how the children fared, how they saw a creature, which in a "plumdomphious" manner, ran away towards the setting sun, and how they got home again, are well worth knowing. We may not copy Mr. Lear's botanical study, that wondrous plant Phattfacia stupenda, but the following verse, from 'Mr. and Mrs. Spikky Sparrow,' is attainable : On a little piece of wood, In the nest, and all alive, This idyll is sustained with great spirit to its catastrophe. We are under an impression that Mr. John Gilbert's illustrations to The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow' (Routledge & Sons) are not new to us; certainly some of the blocks seem a good deal worn. At any rate, the designs are perfectly suited to the pretty verses of the popular writer, and especially in the sentimental parts, which are so rife, none could be better. The peculiar merit claimed for this attractive volume is, that it contains "all the New England tragedies, and is the only complete edition that can be issued in the United Kingdom." Let us hope Mr. Longfellow's admirers will accept this as the most interesting information we can afford them. The book is extremely well "got-up," and sure to be acceptable as a present for young ladies. The gorgeous binding of The Poems of Thomas Hood, illustrated by Birket Foster (Moxon & Co.), is enough to attract and please all artistic eyes before the book is open, yet, on second looking, one cannot fail to see that the designer is not au fait with the principles of decorative art, nor very logical in his attempt to combine the elements of decoration: two sorts of ornament, two elements of design are, without truth, put together which should have been kept distinct; thus, we have a semicircle of Byzantine severity, it might have been borrowed from a mosaic, in juxtaposition to a sort of lattice on which are imposed flowers and leaves naturalistically treated! The effect and abundance of gilding are taking, but the whole will not bear criticism. Moreover, stern Byzantine conventional ornament is out of keeping with Hood's verses. Turning to the inside of the volume, one sees at once that it is a gem of fine printing, enriched by delicately-engraved landscapes of great refinement and variety. Lacking something in sentiment, these designs do not come short of that feeling for natural beauty and that power of clever composition which so often stands Mr. Foster in good stead. We confess to considerable difficulties as to local truth in the landscapes: e. g., facing page 207 is a view of which the posi tion suggests that it must be meant for Kew Bridge. It would do nearly as well for any other bridge of stone with the same number of arches. We confess we do not see what has been gained, except so far as the artist's trouble was concerned, by such a mode of treatment as this: Hood's Bridge of Kew To me a bridge of sighs, is Kew Bridge with all its local colour and incidents. Why then illustrate Hood with an imaginary Kew Bridge? As a picture it is extremely pretty, but as an illustration it is worthless. The generalized view of the Rhine, page 89, having no localizing point in the text, is not only beautiful in its way, but amply sufficient as an illustration. There is grandeur of form in the vignette-landscape before "The Knight and the Dragon," page_87. The illustration to "To —, composed at Rotterdam," might almost as well apply to Bruges or Bristol. The "Ode to the Moon" has a charming drawing of the mouth of a river and of the sea. Notwithstanding the shortcomings to which we have referred, we are glad to state that this volume is one of the handsomest of the kind that we have ever known. Our readers will see, however, that its promise is kept to the eye if not to the taste, and the appearance of art and of intellectual fidelity and fitness is attained, rather than the reality. It seems to us that the same trouble which has been expended, certainly the same cost, would, if loyally as well as learnedly directed, have sufficed to produce a volume of something better than elaborate pretences. To those who consider these remarks hypercritical, and a book as a "piece of furniture," in the current sense of the term, we commend this handsome volume as worthy the highest applause; to others we commend it as one of the most curious and superb studies of "how not to do it" in Art they will ever meet with. Pictures from English Literature, by John Francis Waller, with illustrations (Cassell, Petter & Galpin), comes into a different category from that of the above. The literary "pictures" consist of versions, in prose, of famous stories. As to the illustrations, they vary much in value and merit, from Mr. Ward's 'Lydia Languish,' the frontispiece to Mr. E. Hughes's not beautiful design to 'Comus,' Mr. M. Stone's very cleverly-treated and pretty illustration of 'Griselda,' Mr. Watson's commonplace 'Una and the Red Cross Knight,' and Mr. Yeames's ordinary 'Hal and Falstaff.' There is a great deal of humour in Mr. C. Green's rather flimsily-executed design, 'Dick Dowlas,' and the principal figure is capitally rendered. "Sophia Western,' by Mr. Du Maurier, is very pleasing, and cleverly treated; a little too much like Mr. Frith's more happy efforts to be quite welcome from another's hand, at the same time it is far richer in pictorial" qualities than Mr. Frith has contrived to be: we mean in colour, chiaroscuro, composition and richness. Mr. J. Faed's 'Jeanie Deans,' a single figure, is altogether a mistake in character; it is so unsympathetic that one looks more than once before deciding whether it be meant for Jeanie or Effie Deans! Mr. Lawson's 'Gertrude of Wyoming' is most happy in treating light, the effect of which is curiously good; the figures are well designed. Mr. Fildes's Haidee with Juan' is tawdry in sentiment, and lacks beauty in every element. On the whole, this is a very good gift-book indeed, and quite equal to its pretensions. 66 The Legend of the Red Crosse or of Holinesse, the First Book of Spenser's 'Fairy Queene,' illustrated with twelve drawings by Charlotte M. B. Morrell (Low & Co.), concerns us not, from a literary point of view, except so far as regards the typography, which is excellent. As to the illustrations, which have been photographed, they are but poor things: Spenser is beyond the art of this lady. Radiant in colours and brilliant in effects is the large volume of chromo-lithographs, with a text by the Rev. T. G. Bonney, which Mr. W. M. Thompson has published for Mr. Elijah Walton, with the title The Coast of Norway, from Christiania to Hammerfest. Mr. Bonney's text has been very neatly and ably supplied; it is extremely readable, | light, and yet not flashy. Without absolutely pinning our faith to, or subscribing to the pictorial efforts of Mr. Walton, it is pleasant to be able to say that, looking at his work as a whole, he will do much by it to present vivid, too vivid certainly, ideas of Norway to the popular mind's eye. His pictorial effects, which are of the dioramic, not the purely artistic sort, are superb: one startles at the splendours of the 'Lofoten Islands from the Vest Fjord'; but notwithstanding this defect of sobriety and moderation as to colour,-of course there is nothing impossible in the mere splendour of such efforts,-it is undeniable that the picture, while appealing to those who are taken by 'striking" art, is striking and most effective. The rendering of the assumed effects of light on the hills, their snows, the sea, the sky, and sailing ships, is very telling. Of quieter and more delicate colouring is "The Raftsund, Lofoten Islands,' where the same felicity in rendering light is observable. Next is 'Glaciers near Mus Fjord,' with snowy mountain summits and a barren waste of cliffs behind. curious picture of a series of sugar-loaf peaks of great altitude appears in 'Vaage Kallen, Lofoten Islands.' These peaks are dominated by one among them; every ledge holds a patch of snow, every crenellation is marked by a white line. A blinding field of white appears in 'The Fondalen Glaciers.' Like these are the rest, and all are very curiously felicitous in giving the forms of the mountains; not even photographs are happier than these drawings, which doubtless owe much to photography. Accepting them as splendid romances on the sites in question, hardly as works of art in any but mechanical respects, we are bound to say that the whole forms a most attractive and interesting volume. As to the colour-reproduction, we wish pictures were copied as brilliantly as these landscapes are. A Messrs. Moxon, Son & Co. send us The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, edited, with a critical Memoir, by William Michael Rossetti, illustrated by artistic etchings by Edwin Edwards; likewise The Poetical Works of Henry W. Longfellow, similarly edited, supplied with a memoir, and illustrated. Mr. Rossetti's memoirs are essentially critical and discriminatory; the author is not led away by his subject, as too many men in such positions as his are. He does not over-estimate Wordsworth, neither does he contemn him on account of a certain woodenness, which the critic has endeavoured to describe for us by saying that his subject lacked a certain "magnetic power which so often moves men to delight in those they admire, or do not admire, as the case may be. Objecting to the term "magnetic " as a fanciful and not commendable Americanism, we are bound to allow the criticism of the biographer in this as in other points which are presented with tact and taste. It is not, however, to be taken unkindly or ungratefully on our parts that we cannot forbear a smile to see how Mr. Rossetti mounts his warhorse in honour of Shelley. One may hardly yield to our critic in delight in the lyrist's works, without going quite so far as he does in saying that it is doubtful whether it is more of an honour than an obloquy to be made the subject of satire by "so stupendous a genius as Shelley." Considering what Wordsworth was, it is, we think, by no means a question whether or not 'Peter Bell the Third' was well or ill directed: and we are bound to aver that 'Peter Bell the Third' never captivated our minds and hearts. Apart from this, as it appears to us, somewhat ill-considered portion of the biography and criticism, the essay is a masterpiece. So fine and good is the summing up in the last four paragraphs of the memoir, that we regret not having space sufficient to transcribe the whole of it. The text appears to have been carefully revised; but the form of the volume is cumbrous, and this, too, although type has been employed so small that few eyes could care long to read it. The binding of the volume, like that of its fellow, is not commendable in taste, and is decidedly the reverse of serviceable. As to Mr. E. Edwards's illustrations, they are, though by no means without gleams of power and love for nature, absolutely antipathetic to the |