THERE is no need to think meanly of our own age in order for us to enjoy the abundant feast of legendary and historical lore provided in this very valuable work. It is just the kind of book wanted for the instruction of countless persons who have neither opportunity nor inclination to consult the large county histories. Here, in three handy volumes, they will find the cream of an extensive library. Such a book supplements the ordinary history of our country, by introducing a great deal more of private biography than those histories can find room for. The founders of abbeys, the builders of castles and family seats, at least many of them, were also public men. Here we see them rather in their private character, and learn a good deal about the life they managed to live in those re

Chichester Cathedral, carry us westwards into Hampshire, Dorset, and Devon. In this last county a weird legend of the Piskies, or Fairies of Devon and Cornwall finds a place among the more recent records of material buildings. Our guide now carries us across the island, beginning with Wiltshire, to the Midland and Eastern Counties; but we cannot follow him into particulars in the brief space at our disposal. At every step the reader will find fresh and ever recurring interest, bound up in the mouldering remains of the past, or the still surviving edifices which are the pride of their neighbourhood. The third and Northern division of the Kingdom (to which is added North and South Wales) is as rich as the south and east in baronial and ecclesiastical antiquities. In our illustration

mote, and comparatively rude times. The first volume, of course, opens with London, Westminster, Old St. Paul's, and the Tower, ever teeming with recollections of the past. Every old quarter of the City has its own stories and associations, and often its tragedies, long ago effaced and forgotten, except when, as now, some antiquary takes the trouble of unearthing them. Middlesex and its contiguous counties are next explored in an easterly and southerly direction. -Essex, Surrey, and Kent. The last-named is peculiarly rich in antiquities of this kind. Rochester, Richboro', and Dover Castles, and the cluster of ecclesiastical foundations at Canterbury, alone are a microcosm of our early national history. Romsey, Hastings, and Arundel Castles in Sussex (to name only a few), and

Abbeys, Castles, and Ancient Halls of England and Wales: their Legendary Lore and Popular History. By John Timbs. Re-edited, Revised, and Enlarged by Alexander Gunn. With Illustrations. Three vols. (Frederick Warne and Co.)

the reader sees the ivy-mantled ruins of Wilton Castle, on the left bank of the Wye, in the vicinity of Ross. The castle and estate, after passing into the possession of many families, became the property of Thomas Guy, the founder of the Hospital in Southwark which bears his name. He left them to trustees for the benefit of the charity. Such, in the barest outline, is a summary of these most interesting volumes. The numerous illustrations are very much to the purpose, representing either in vignettes or full page, the more important buildings. Each volume has a carefully prepared index-a matter of no small moment in a work comprising so very many names. The three volumes in their bright dark blur -and-gold bindings, would form a most valuable ddition to the drawing-room table or library suelves; an addition not to be counted ephemeral, like an annual, but a possession to be treasured and consulted for many a season to come.

LEGENDS of mythological significance form a stronger bond of union between distant peoples and far-off times than any other, except, perhaps, unsuspected family-ties of words and expressions. Thousands of years ago supernatural beings, such as are described in the goodly volume before us, claimed the reverence, and received under various forms and symbols, the worship of nations now locally extinct, but from which our own European races have sprung. In the East, our Teutonic and Scandinavian myths may be traced, thus confirming the truth of the Aryan ancestry common to all the Indo-Germanic races. A tolerably full account of those legends has never been offered to the young till the issue of the present volume; it is well, therefore, to point out in a few lines some of the features in Mr. Anson's work. To begin with its title:-" Asgard means the ward, garden, garth or yard-that is, the dwelling-place, of the ases or gods; a glorious palace, fabled to exceed the compass of the human eye, resplendent as gold in the sunlight, and in the midst of which was a tree rising to the skies, and overshadowing the whole earth. Those divine or semi-divine beings (for there was a graduated scale of rank among them) represented, without doubt, to the primitive man and his untutored mind the powers of

Asgard and the Gods. Tales and Traditions of our Northern Ancestors. Told for Boys and Girls. Adapted from the work of Dr. Wagner by M. W. Macdowall. Edited by W. S. W. Anson. With numerous Illustrations. (W. Swan Sonnenschein and Son.)

nature around him, of which he perceived the universal and recurring effects, yet without gaining a hint as to the cause of what he saw. Odin, or Wodin, was to him the impersonation of the Great Original Cause, who for that reason was termed the "Father of the Gods." Groups of strange legends clustered about Thor, the god of storm and tempest, the cloud-driver; Thunar, or the Thunderer. Frigga, or Freya (the Greek Herè), was venerated as the mother of the gods, the beneficent influence pervading all nature, the patroness of marriage and of lovers. How profoundly the ideas represented by the grotesque mythology of those rude ages had penetrated into their innermost being, may be inferred from the fact that not only are the very names of some of those representative beings preserved in the names of our week-days, but rites, ceremonies, and superstitions connected with them may be traced to the present time, not in Europe only, but wherever Aryan thought has been transmitted in company with Aryan blood. We present our readers with an illustration of Hulda, the Protectress, the goddess of grace and mercy, called also Dame Gode. Beautiful legends relate how she taught the peasants to cultivate flax, and that they often saw her passing through the fields in the moonlight with her maidens, blessing the crops with uplifted hands. She restored soundness to the cripple, and could make old men young again. The illustrations are well adapted to their purpose, and rivet the reader's attention to the corresponding facts in the text.

EACH Successive season furnishes a new volume of this agreeably-written magazine; the present issue is the fifteenth. An endless variety of good and profitable reading is to be found in its 700 pages. Prose and verse in turn, from the pens of favourite authors, keep interest awake, and provide mental food for every taste. Tales full of incident, and often with a veiled suggestion of something more practical than mere amusement, are assigned an ample share of the space and interest at command. Designed, probably, in the first instance for the young, it is difficult for older heads to leave off a good story till it is finished-a sure test of ability in a writer of

The Quiver. (Cassell, Petter, Galpin and Co.)

fiction. Of one thing every guardian of the young may rest assured-that not a line which he could wish unwritten can be found in the book, Its religious tone is, of course, strongly marked, more particularly in papers and essays devoted to the elucidation of Scripture and Christian doctrine; in reports and descriptions of missionary and philanthropic enterprise in every part of the world, far and near. A peculiarly attractive feature in the Quiver is a series of paragraphs, entitled "Short Arrows," fragments of intelligence likely to interest the reader, in connection with the progress of religion, education, and kindred topics. Let the example we give of the illustrations in the volume testify to their general character and excellence.

WE have heroics of one kind or another all the year round, but for Christmas pastime, recommend us to the mock-heroics, especially if they are of the high-class of Major Seccombe's. We have here, in brief, the whole story of a dynasty -nay, of two dynasties. The superb stateceremonial at the court of the little prince with which the rhymed tale opens, is soon overcast, as often in real life, of late, by a radical revolution, from which the baby princelet is rescued by Queen Mab, and entrusted to a worthy widow, a pastrycook, in whose care he grows up to maturity, a marvel of courage and grace. Good Mrs. Crisp kept shop in the capital of Crusty-Gruff, King of Timbuctoo, the Princess Ida's childless uncle. Little Tommy is put to school, has many opportunities of serving the beautiful princess, some of saving her life, in a hand-to-hand fight with a griffin, for instance; rescuing her from a runaway pair of horses. Her gratitude is in proportion to his services, and, in fact, might be pronounced compromising. Meanwhile, a wealthy, but muffy neighbour, Prince Uglymug, appears on the scene, as a suitor of the young princess; a grand tournament is held, at which young Tommy displays his noble qualities, and is highly honoured by the King. Uglymug, finding he hasn't a chance, tries to make mischief between the young lovers. Uncle Crusty-Gruff sends the young lady out of the way in custody of a strict old duenna; while Tommy flies from a terrible fate on a bicycle, any number of miles away, and soon finds | himself in the court of Queen Mab, his old patroness, who undertakes to make everything smooth all round. The telephone is brought into play, the lovers communicate, and hope is kept alive. We cannot pretend to follow the whole delightful and most romantic story. Suffice it to say that, at the critical moment, a counter-revolution is reported in Tommy's country; Tommy flies back, proves his identity, and becomes King Hildebrand. From that moment the course of true love ran smooth enough. Uglymug is sent about his business; we are treated to a brilliant wedding scene; the honeymoon is passed, by special invitation, at the fairy court of Queen Mab; honest mother Crisp

"received the Grand Cross of the Watering-Pot, The Star of the Garter, and goodness knows what; And all went happily as a marriage bell."

Our summary of this unique and original burlesque (prosaic enough, as it is, in all conscience), may give our readers a faint idea of what they may expect; but nothing that we might say could prepare them for the humour or the pathos that wait on every effort of Major Seccombe's graving tool. He handles it with quite as much skill as his pen. Comic figures and groups start into life at his bidding; every step of the story inspires him with fresh invention. Crustygruff Uncles, unspeakable Uglymugs, dance before us in comic guise; but not unrelieved by really graceful sketches, worthy of the first union of the brave with the beautiful. The Princess Ida, in face and figure, is admirably represented; yet even the full-page

The Story of Prince Hildebrand and Princess Ida. Related in Rhyme by Major T. S. Seccombe. With 110 Illustrations by the Author. (Thos. De La Rue.)

frontispiece, like all the rest of the illustrations, is in outline merely.

Master Tom, the prince in disguise, looked exactly as we see him here, when his friendly pastrycook had purchased his commission for him in the "First Life Guards Red." "You may guess Master Tom was imposing to view, When he first mounted guard in his uniform new, His glittering helm, with its plume snowy white, His scarlet coat, breastplate, and epaulettes bright. The Princess could scarcely believe her blue eyes, The first time she saw him-'twas such a surprise."