beauties of Lake Leman and the picturesque towns that lie along its shores, and the sublime features of the Alpine chains that intersect the country. The weird effects of those vast chasms and precipices and soaring peaks, clothed in eternal snows, are not unfrequently as strikingly represented in the smaller engravings distributed among the text. A very remarkable picture is a view of the Matterhorn, from Zermatt-the fascination and the terror of the mountain climber. As we approach the numerous lakes scattered about the country, the rugged severity of the distant mountain scenery relaxes, and we experience in the agreeable change something of the sensation produced by passing to a movement of melodious music after a storm of orchestral harmony, such as Bach or Beethoven could awake.

In our illustration the artist has portrayed the romantic scenery of the old bath-house at Weissenburg, in the Simmenthal, not far from the Lake of Thun. It stands deep in the wood, leaning on the rocky side of a mountain-gorge, in shade and solitude, fanned by moist, warm air, and surrounded by mountains covered with brushwood. From a hidden cleft in the rocks rises the gypsum spring, and when in flood the tumbling waters add to the picturesque character of the scenery.

But the interest of the illustrations is not confined to the natural features of the scenery. Towns and villages abound among them; castles and fortresses, many of them associated with the honourable struggles for freedom which make the history of Switzerland so precious a record of noble adventure crowned with lasting success. We pause before the famous lion, sculptured in the living rock near Lucerne, in memory of the faithful Swiss guards of the French monarch, who fell fighting, in a cause not their own, on the fated 10th of August, 1792. Then, again, we note a number of portraits of eminent Swiss patriots; of men who achieved the liberation of their people, or who laid down their lives in the great cause. If Tell must be given up as mythical, there are plenty of real heroes, whose names are safe from the suspicions of sceptical critics in all future time.

He

We have dwelt a good deal on the really fine illustrations which abound in this volume, because they first strike the eye on casual inspection. But the historical and descriptive text, contributed by Dr. Gsell-fels, is not to be lightly passed over. The author, who wrote in German, is intimately acquainted with his subject. acts as cicerone to the views of scenery, and goes into details of geology and natural history belonging to the country. He dilates on the history of the people, their government, their character and social condition, and mode of life. Some account is given of the most famous mountain ascents, and of the researches of philosophers among the glaciers of the Alps. The English translation of the learned doctor's text has been carefully done by George G. Chisholm, with considerable modifications in order to adapt it to English readers.

A Day of Fate. Books I. and II. By the Rev. E. P. Roe. (Ward, Lock and Co.)-This charming story of American life among the quakers is now completed. It is sufficiently provided with startling incidents to gratify the youngest and most impressionable of novel readers; its wholesome and natural tone will recommend it to a wide circle of people who like to feel that even light reading is no waste of time.

Men of Light and Leading. By Andrew James Symington. (Blackie and Son.)-The phrase which took the world somewhat by surprise, a few months ago, in a famous manifesto, has, we believe, been traced to Burke. It has been adopted by the publishers as the title of a new series of popular biographies, and is elastic enough to include any class of distinguished men; as far as the series has yet gone, it has been limited to poets, opening with :

Tom Moore's Life and Works.-The incidents of his life are pleasantly interwoven with selections from his writings and his journal. The handy volume is especially welcome, as a good popular life of the Irish poet has long been a desideratum.

William C. Bryant.-A biographical sketch of the veteran American poet, whose recent death was lamented on both sides of the Atlantic, opens up to English readers an interesting and but little known chapter in the literature of America. Ample extracts from his poems will show how closely he had formed his style on the best classical models.

Samuel Lover, Painter, etcher, lyric poet, musical composer, executant, novelist and dramatist," for he was all these-furnishes materials for an excellent biography. The author of "Rory O'More" and of "The Angel's Whisper" is entitled to a place among "Men of Light;" and in addition to specimens of his published works, ten poems and a few prose jottings never before published are placed before the reader. The series commences under highly favourable auspices. The little volumes, not too bulky to go into the pocket, are beautifully printed and tastefully bound; each of them having a portrait of the author. To young people who have out-grown the pleasures of picture books," no better memorial of the season could be offered.

Warne's Model Cookery, with Complete Instructions in Household Management. Compiled and Edited by Mary Jewry. Illustrated. (Frederick Warne and Co.)-The preface tells us that fifty thousand copies of this work have been sold since it was first published, so that it may be said to have attained the dignity of a classic of the kitchen. Changes, however, are continually taking place, new dishes are invented and old ones discarded, certain articles of food which were perhaps expensive luxuries a few years ago, are now plentiful. Cost also has to be considered even with staple articles of consumption when proper attention is paid to economical housekeeping. With all this in view, it was thought necessary for the work to undergo a general revision. This has accordingly been done, considerable additions have been made, receipts have been gathered from many different quarters, quantities have been tested by practice; the time required in cooking has also received attention, coloured illustrations supplement the woodcuts, and other improvements have been effected. As now constituted, the work extends to nearly 750 pages, and contains no less than 2,835 receipts for different dishes, more than half of which are stated to be from original sources. As good cooking is so large a factor in festivities of every kind, this book ought specially to commend itself to those in quest of a suitable present for a lady, more particularly if they happen to be selfishly interested in the matter. The strong halfbinding in which the volume is issued is another point in its favour.

WHATEVER may be the fate in store for the classics of Greece and Rome, the reign of the crucible and the microscope does not seem likely, at least for a good while to come, to

GILDEROY.

supersede our own classical literature; and even if the English poets were less deeply rooted in the national affection than they undoubtedly are, so attractive a presentment of their works as Messrs. Warne's "Lansdowne Poets" would go far to arrest the decline of their popularity. A collection of the series, as far as it has yet gone (and it now numbers some three dozen volumes), looks like a bed of fresh flowers, so bright are its various hues, so tasteful the ornamentation and other details of the binder's art. On opening a volume, be it bound in red or blue, the eye of the connoisseur is met by agreeable type on fine-toned paper, *The Lansdowne Poets. Entirely New Edition; red line border, with Original Notes, steel Portraits, and full-page illustrations. (Frederick Warne and Co.)

and surrounded by red border lines, which are now becoming indispensable to a book in fulldress. Add to these features fine portraits of authors on steel, and excellent illustrations of their works, and we think the claims of the "Lansdowne Poets Series" to recognition by givers of Christmas gifts are fully made out.

Among the latest issues of the series may be mentioned the Poetical Works of Gray, Beattie, and Collins, a new edition, with notes, memoirs, and illustrations. The authors respectively of the "Elegy," the Minstrel," and the "Ode to the Passions" are appropriately grouped together as contemporaries, filling a place in literary history between Pope and Cowper, between the decline of the older school and the rise of the modern.

A new edition of the Percy Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, edited by Edward Walford, will be welcomed by lovers of our early ballad literature. An old favourite of this class is "Gilderoy," an elegy on the death of a noted Scotch robber in his day, supposed to be sung by his lady-love. Our woodcut represents the capture of the graceful freebooter, "Who never wore a Highland plaid,

But costly silken clothes," and defied capture till, as we see, he was overpowered by numbers.

Yet another recent member of the Lansdowne Series calls for notice, Gems of National Poetry, edited by Mrs. Valentine, who has made a judicious selection from our principal poets, beginning with Chaucer and Spenser, and continued to the present time. The three new volumes of the series are as bright and attractive outside as inside, in the glories of gold and colour, objects of desire to every juvenile who has learnt to know a good book when he sees it.

Rose Gurney's Discovery: A Story for Girls, dedicated to their Mothers. By Mrs. G. S. Reaney. (C. Kegan Paul and Co.)-The heroine's discovery was made, not an hour too soon, that the man she was about to marry was a worthless fellow; from which the author proceeds to argue generally that men known to live evil lives should not be admitted into virtuous society.

My New Toy-Book, 24 full-page Coloured Oleos, in brilliant cover, will at once catch the eye and fancy of the happy child to whom parent or friend presents this attractive toy-book. They are employed to illustrate various scenes in a Children's Garden; in the story of a Goat; the accomplishments of a "New Pet," an intel igent jackdaw who was up to all sorts of tricks; and the touching story of Eva and little Topsy, a negro child.

Thoughtful Foe, and How he Gained his Name. By Ruth Lamb. With 12 Drawings on wood by Robert Barnes. The drawings are so good as hardly to require the running letterpress to explain their meaning. From good to better, Joe advances, helping everybody and improving himself, till he is seen in the last picture in clerical costume, relieving the anxiety of an agitated mother about her little one. The blue-and-gold cover sets off a very pretty gift-book.

The volumes next to be noticed are story-books for the young, more or less liberally illustrated, and diminishing in size and price as the list advances.

Vignettes of the Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century. By Edwin Paxton Hood.-A series of short sketches originally published in the Sunday at Home, recounting the principal facts connected with the rise of Methodism and the Evangelical school in England. Whitfield, the Wesleys, and a numerous body of clergymen who remained in the Establishment, are made the subject of biographical notices; their portraits are engraved in wood, and views given of several of the more remarkable churches and tabernacles" associated with the period.

The Child's Companion and Juvenile Instructor, 1880, combines the attractions of an Almanack, a Toy, and a Story Book, filled with all kinds of instructive matter, together with amusement. The letterpress is ably seconded by the woodengravings, large and small. An oleograph frontispiece shows us a pert little lady in scarlet challenging her papa to a snow-ball duel. A bright ornamented cover, in gold and buff, completes a most tempting volume.

DESERTED DAISY.

Penfold: A Story of the Flower M ssion. By Ruth Lynn.-A mother, driven desperate by want, is forced to desert her child, or see it perish from hunger. She leaves it on the workhouse steps, but accident befriends the little one, who is ultimately restored to her mother. One of the illustrations from the volume is inserted above. It shows us Daisy beginning to feel very miserable, because of the continued absence of her mother, but a friendly policeman soon obtains shelter for the little girl.

The Boy Emigrants. By Noah Brooks.-A tale of the American Plains and the Californian Gold Mines, written originally to give American boys and girls a description of the Californian movement. It is a record of real events and not a work of fiction. The thirty illustrations are particularly good, and the comic element has been introduced into some of them with excellent effect.

Away on the Waters.-A merchant vessel in time of peace, bound for a distant port, with all the incidents of calms and storms, of sickness and a death on board; of visiting foreign shores long familiar in name, from Jamaica to Japan -such are the materials of this boys' story, which is made further interesting by several woodcuts.

STORIES OF LONG AGO.*

IT is well sometimes to recall out of the remote past the stories which served to amuse generations which have long disappeared. The collection here presented has been gathered from many sources. Some are tinged with Oriental imagination, and were doubtless of Eastern origin. Others come from Brittany, from Provence, from Scandinavia, from that storehouse of legend and history, the "Gesta Romanorum," and some are of English parentage. Whatever the source, however, it is quite certain that younger readers will find delight enough in the stories themselves, without troubling to enquire very deeply into their origin. More than one classic of the nursery may be traced to some medieval legend which, in its archaic form delighted kings and warriors, and perhaps to a still older parentage, when the ancestors of the Indo-Germanic peoples were still sparsely scattered about the slopes and

THE THIEVES' SURPRISE.

villages of the Hindo-Koosh. Mr. Hope's stories, however, are more familiar. "The Abbot and the Emperor," which appears in Percy's "Reliques under the title of "King John and the Abbot of Canterbury, is the first. Then comes the story of Havelock, who became King of Denmark and England, Then we have the legend of the Emperor Jovinian, followed by the "True History of the Wise Men of Gotham," and nearly a score of others. The abounding wealth of woodcut illustrations which adorn the pages of this volume deserve as much notice as the literary material of the book. Every story has from three to eight pictures, large and small, drawn with great spirit and very well engraved. of these we transfer to our pages.

One

Stories of Long Ago. Retold by Ascot R. Hope. With a Hundred Illustrations by C. O. Murray. Engraved by R. Paterson. (John Walker and Co.)

Our Next-Door Neighbour. By Stella Austin. (J. Masters and Co.)-A simple story about the doings of two little girls, and little Prince Charming, who lived next door. It is a cleverly told narration, true to the nature of young people as they are to be found in thousands of families all over the land, and, therefore, certain to interest small readers who may fortunately become its possessors. Several illustrations are interspersed in the text.

English Lake Scenery. Illustrated with a series of Coloured Plates, from Drawings by A. F. Lydon. (John Walker and Co.)-People are too apt to imagine that what they see in foreign countries far surpasses anything their own country has to offer; just as the fair nations of northern. Europe give the preference to dark beauties, and the dark nations of the sunny south select a blonde as their ideal of perfection. Thousands of English people leave their own shores every year for the great show-places

of other lands, while thousands of travellers from America and elsewhere flock to English and Scotch scenery, with a zest inexplicable to the prejudiced Briton. We are not concerned herewith the scenery of Scotland; but of English landscapes, by far the first and loveliest are those which lie among the mountains and lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland. Their beauty has been sung by a school of poets named after the district of the lakes, of whom Wordsworth is the chief. He lived and died in a beautiful spot commanding views of Rydal Water and Grasmere. Messrs. Walker have published an exquisite volume of chromo views of the lake scenery, to the number of twenty-five. The characteristic features of the principal lakes are well preserved in a series of miniature landscapes; the more rugged features of the water-falls, or foices," are no less happily rendered. A page of descriptive text accompanies each view, the whole forming a most attractive book to lie on a drawing-room table. Externally, its binding leaves nothing to desire, with its scarlet cover, its black-and-gold border, and a deeply recessed "mandola " in the centre, bearing the title among a group of foliage. Gems of Great Authors. Selected by John Tillotson. (Gall and Inglis.)-Selected passages from the writings of nearly two hundred authors, old and new, English and foreign, on the utmost diversity of subjects, but each exhibiting some gem of thought set in the choicest language. It is handsomely printed, with red border lines to the pages. An index of subjects and of authors completes its usefulness for purposes of reference.

Great Scholars. By Henry James Nicoll. (Macniven and Wallace.)-For the benefit of persons whose time for reading is limited, the publishers offer an abridged account of several men, eminent in their day for their scholarship. George Buchanan (1506-1582), Bently, Porson, and Parr, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, furnish ample materials for a valuable and instructive little book.

Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin. By the late W. H. G. Kingston. -This handsome volume, like the last, belongs to a new series of children's books published by this Society, in small quarto, and with plenty of good illustrations. "Every school-boy knows how much Mr. Kingston could make of a good story; how he carries his reader along with him, and works the interest, with a critical adventure now and then. His humour not seldom passes from fun to burlesque; but that makes the story only the more popular with the schoolboy. The two noble friends who give their names to this tale started from home to see a little of the world. They explored a good part of Holland, afloat and ashore, and had to rough it so considerably that in no long time they were glad to return to their own country.

In the Society's Home Library" Series:Women of Christendom. Dedicated to the Women of India.-The Author of Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family" has put together a comprehensive set of sketches of typical women, from Eve, the first of our race, to our own day. The women of the Gospel-at the head of whom is the mother of Jesus; after her, Mary Magdalene; then several of the holy women in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Early Church-afford a wide field for description and suggestion. To them succeed one or two belonging to the Middle Ages; and, best of all, some representative women of modern times. The selection is thoroughly impartial; and the tone of the narratives more than ordinarily beautiful and engaging. The volume is destined, we feel sure, to have a wide popularity.

Among the Society's New Publications we

note:

Some Heroes of Travel; or, Chapters from the History of Geographical Discovery and Enterprise, with map. Compiled and re-written by W. H. Davenport Adams -The romance of travel has lost nothing of its ancient character in the hands of recent explorers. If any one doubt it let him read Mr. Adams' account of Ruton's adventures in Mexico, and Dr. Barth's and Alexina Tinne's, in Central Africa; of Atkinson's journey into Siberia and Central Asia, and Egerton Warburton's explorations in West Australia. Major Burnaby and Sir Samuel Baker are striking examples of the same fact. By way of a standard of comparison, a summary of Marco Polo's mediæval expedition is prefixed. An intelligent boy will devour a book like this with the avidity of a novel reader.

Wrecked Lives; or, Men who have Failed. By W. H. Davenport Adams. First and second series. -Even from the failures of humanity a moral may be drawn, together with the secrets of avoiding a similar disappointment. The narrative part is, as usual, well done by Mr. Adams. The

CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

short biographies include many well-known names of men who, from a different point of view, might be regarded as the reverse of failures. Poor Richard Savage failed, indeed; so did Chatterton. But did Dean Swift? His biographer must be consulted for an answer. Robert Burns, and in a later day, Benjamin Haydon, fell short of their high promise; Edgar Allan Poe still more signally. Among political failures Robespierre and Kosciusko are representative characters.

Bernard Hamilton, Curate of Stowe. By Mary E. Shipley.-Stowe Puerorum is a sleepy old country town, with its small local interests and little cabals, and other pictures of English life far removed from the centres of activity. The story of the curate, which is nicely illustrated, is a complete portrait-gallery of all the principal characters, from the kindly old rector and his churchwarden downwards. The sketches are made by a really master-hand, and are calculated not simply to amuse, but to make the reader better.

Steffan's Angel, and other Stories. By M. E. Townsend.-Steffan Bauer was a house-decorator in a little Tyrolese town, with a considerable turn for modelling in clay. A young orphan neighbour so captivated his fancy that he designed an angel-figure which should be a portrait of her beautiful face. After many difficulties, artist and model were married, and their sweet peasant life became a simple idyll. Other stories, equally unpretending and not less pleasing, follow that of Steffan and his Angel. The Belfry of St. Jude's. By Esmé Stuart.St. Jude's was one of those old churches which were swept away during the changes of the last century in France, leaving nothing to show but the town, in which Réné Tellier, the painter, and his sister Marie lived. Their history belongs to the dark period of the German war; but it works itself, in due time, free from the surrounding horrors, and ends in peace and content

ment.

By

My Lonely Lassie. Chryssie's Hero. Annette Lyster.-The first is a really charming story of a young lady, about whose early years a mystery hangs; she is next thing to a princess in disguise, but is obliged by the common necessities of humanity to support herself by her own exertions. Time clears up the mystery, sets the marquis' grand-daughter in her true light,and deals justice all round. Miss Lyster's second tale is concerned chiefly with Irish society, and various characters young and old involved in the plot, which is full of incident. Frank O'Hara is sent to a private school near Woolwich, where he endures much from his uncle, the master, but receives sympathy from his young cousin, Christabel, or Chryssie; he grows into her hero and she becomes his wife. The traits of character are better even than the plot.

The Fortunes of Hassan. The strange story of a Turkish refugee, as told by himself. The adventures and perils of a Turkish dog are told in the liveliest style of autobiography. His experiences introduced him to many pleasant and not a few tragic scenes during the lawless time of the late Turkish war, which he describes in a manner that would not compromise a special correspondent. At last he becomes the property of an Ingeliz," who brought him to this country, where he is perfectly happy.

The Cruise of the Dainty: or, Rovings in the Pacific. By William H. G. Kingston.-Another of the breezy stories in which boys delight;