harsh indeed. Perhaps Mr. Jacobs would follow a different policy now when Southron readers scramble for a Scots book in proportion to the likelihood of its containing no one sentence which they can understand as a coherent whole. But in another respect Mr. Jacobs disappoints us sadly, and that is in an occasional trick of slang -and not very good slang either. We do not believe that Jack said "Walker!" to the butcher who sold him the beans; and it grates upon us to be told that the ogre's wife "wasn't such a bad sort after all." Nor should Mr. Couch, who ought to know better, and who for the most part overhauls his Taylor in his translations from Grimm, have permitted the Valiant Tailor to exclaim, "Done with you!" These offences, though apparently trifling, are in reality of a grave complexion. Children are extraordinarily sharp observers and critics of style, and the impressions produced by fairy talesthe first form of literature, as a rule, to which a child is introduced-are apt to be deep and permanent. Why, then, vitiate and deprave the youthful taste by expressions which, however serviceable in private life, are essentially commonplace and undistinguished in literary use? We are far from passing an undiscriminating sentence of condemnation upon the use of slang in literature. In slang "a word which itself belongs to the vocabulary it denotes"-the man of letters possesses an instrument which, though it requires very careful and gingerly handling, is capable of producing remarkable effects when wielded with tact and dexterity. No one who has read the works of Esop as they appear transformed in the pages of Roger L'Estrange can ever forget the pungent and unique flavor imparted to the style by the daring and successful employment of idioms which shocked the dignified Hallam, who thought that the fables presented everything that is hostile to good taste, and displeased the pugnacious Macaulay, who denounced the "mean and flippant jargon." But few men have the gifts of the first of Tory journalists, and he who, thinking slang funny per se, will not fastidiously pick and choose, but considers one cant word as good as another, and who employs the vocabulary for its own sake and not because it happens to harmonize with the context or to strike the appropriate note, had better leave it alone. We have no such crow to pluck with Mr. Lang, who has throughout permitted his long narrative stories to run in what we venture to consider the true style-a style which belongs exclusively to no special period unless it be the first quarter of this century; a style adorned with an occasional touch of grandiloquence, with a fair sprinkling of long words, and with a handsome allowance of idiomatic turns of expression that have dropped out of common speech; a style suggesting now "Sandford and Merton" without its circumlocution, now "The Parent's Assistant" without its sententiousness. It is a style perfectly intelligible to any ordinary child, yet sufficiently distinct from every-day talk to fix its attention, to stimulate its sense of humor, and to pique its curiosity, if it should chance to have any literary bent. "You have been into my closet. Vastly well, madam, then you shall go in again!" There is the true keeping in this truculent address of Bluebeard, which may be taken as a specimen of the diction which is specially suitable to a fairy story. We should be sorry to have to pronounce definitely upon the respective methods of Mr. Lang's and Mr. Jacobs's fairy books, and if we are conscious of a slight preference for Mr. Jacobs's, that is probably owing (apart from Mr. Batten's quaintly humorous designs) to his inclusion of "Childe Rowland," and "Mr. Fox," with its refrain, "It is not so, nor 'twas not so, and God forbid it should be so." But it is scarcely fair to institute too close a comparison, for Mr. Jacobs, unless we do him a great injustice, never quite takes his eye off a grown-up audience. At any rate, he has enriched his collections with a series of fascinating notes (from which children are duly and solemnly warned off), and from 2 savants are more pleasantly communicated than anywhere else in a couple of fairy tales of Mr. Lang's own invention concerning a certain very notable Prince Prigio of Pantouflia and his son Ricardo. The flying carpet, the shoes of swiftness, the sword of sharpness-in a word, the whole apparatus of the fairy tale is there; and the characteristic leit-motifs are chaffed and parodied with a lightness of touch and a good nature which will charm childrer. no less than their elders. Mr. Lang. too, is of the fortunate few who can use slang wisely and well. these the ordinary reader may gather | perhaps the results of the labors of to what degree of precision the science of folk-lore has been reduced. He will there read much of "accumulative stories" and "cante-fables," of "nameguessing wagers," and "the youngestson formula." He will also discover that "Catskin," another of Mr. Burchell's repertory, is a "sub-species" of the Cinderella story, of the pure type of which there exist no fewer than one hundred and thirteen variants. Mr. Baring-Gould also supplies notes on a more meagre scale, but their value is somewhat impaired by his obstinate and unqualified adherence to the "sunmyth" theory. Thus to him the giant's hen in "Jack and the Beanstalk," which lays its golden egg every morning, is the dawn; the automatic harp is the wind; the money and jewel bags are "the clouds that drop fertilizing showers." All which to us sounds very mid-summer madness. Mr. Jacobs is dead against the solar myth view; but then, like a true specialist, he seems "game" to combat everybody else's theories. We present him with the following suggestion: that he should compile an alphabetical dictionary of folk-tales drawn up and "rubricked" like a law report. As thus: "Death-bed promise - Deceased wife's resemblance marriage test-Helpful Animal-Counter tasks - Magic dresses - Heroine flight tral figure of most of the stories. At Menial heroine-Love-sick prince-Shoe marriage test - Happy marriage. Circumstances in which held (by Lang & Jacobs, JJ., Baring-Gould, J., dissenting) that So-and-so is not a sun-myth, but must be taken to be," etc. A similar mode of arrangement might also be adopted in the case of nursery rhymes, of which a charming collection has been issued with a preface by Mr. Saintsbury,' in which he lays great stress on the importance of mere jingle in all sorts of poetry. (Why, let us ask parenthetically, has the rhyme of the "three little kittens who lost their mittens" been omitted from an otherwise impeccable work?) But 1 National Rhymes of the Nursery. London: Wells, Gardner, Darton, & Co., 1895. Of modern offshoots of the fairy tale proper we can but briefly allude to two: the "Beast" tale, and the "Wonderland” tale. The former Mr. Kipling has appropriated for his own, nor is he likely soon to be ousted from his supremacy in this department. By his two volumes of jungle tales he has contrived a considerable addition to a reputation which might well have contented even an ambitious man. With infinite spirit, yet with artistic restraint, he sets forth the sayings and doings of the beasts of the jungle; of Baloo the bear, of Kaa the python, of Shere Khan the tiger, of Bagheera the black panther, of Mowgli "the frog," a man-child bred by wolves, the cen the beginning and end of every tale is a snatch of verse, much of it in Mr. Kipling's happiest vein. The song of Darzee the tailor-bird, for example, in honor of Rikki-tikki-tavi the mongoose, after he has killed Nag the cobra and Nagaina his mate, is a marvel of cleverness. These jungle tales, it may be added, possess in a very high degree Mr. Kipling's old characteristic of being convincing, in virtue of which he compels the reader to accept his facts and traits as self-probative and beyond all question, save this, How on earth came this extraordinary writer to know so much? 2 My Own Fairy-Book. By Andrew Lang. Bristol: Arrowsmith, 1895. 3 The Jungle-Book. The Second Jungle-Book. London: Macmillan, 1895. A The other "typical development" of the fairy story-the "Wonderland" tale -will always be identified with the name of Mr. Lewis Carrol. The various excellencies of the two great "Alice" books, their quaint mixture of sense and nonsense, their whimsical adherence to the strict forms of logic, the dream-like unity of their action, and, above all, the aptness and fidelity of the occasional parodies, thoroughly entitle them to that position in the public esteem which they honorably hold. It is many years since they first revealed to the world their new and pleasant convention; but they still continue to receive the tribute implied in imitation. The list of children's books deliberately constructed on the "Alice" model must be a very long one. We can think of scarcely more than one which is within measurable distance of its original; not a few are positively unreadable; the majority are certainly ower bad for blessing, whether or no they be ower guid for banning. very fair specimen of the Wonderland class lies before us, bearing the not very inviting name of the "Wallypug of Why."1 The humor is thin and forced; the puns are fatiguing; the verse is facile but savorless; and there is a sad want of the indispensable air of plausibility, of the indefinable link which seems to give coherence even to a series of incongruous and disMr. Furniss and jointed incidents. Miss Furniss have embellished the book with drawings which add little grace or charm to the text. In a work of this sort good illustrations are of vital importance. The two "Alices" would not have caught the public fancy so quickly and so surely but for Sir John Tenniel's inimitable designs, from which it is almost impossible mentally to dissociate the letterpress. adewithout his assistance, could quately have "visualized" the Mad Hatter, or the White Queen, or Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or the Black Kitten? Similarly, Mr. Lear's nonsense verses gain something from his Who, 1 The Wallypug of Why. By G. E. Farrow. London: Hutchison & Co. grotesque illustrations (and what more charming combination ever rooted itself in the affections of the nursery?), while "Struwwelpeter," delightful as the English rendering is, would be shorn of half its glories were Shockheaded Peter, or Cruel Frederick, or Johnny Head-in-Air not presented to the eye in their charmingly crude reds and greens. So, too, a new nonsensebook by an anonymous author-artist amply atones for the somewhat defective technique of its verse by the irresistible comicality and masterly exaggeration of the sketches. Master Bobby, who "ate a bun, flabby, stodgy, underdone," and the "little toddling child, who never spoke but always smiled," should not be long in reaching the eminence attained by Conrad Suck-a-thumb and Foolish Harriet. will Books, on the other hand, avowedly designed both for children and for grown-up people, are apt to please neither class. That the Rev. Mr. Crockett's "Sweetheart Travellers" prove an exception to the rule we neither assert nor deny. But we venture with some confidence to predict that it will afford infinite pleasure to Mr. Crockett's large circle of admirers. It describes the excursions of a father and his little daughter: plainly of Scots extraction (which is a great point to begin with), for they are shaky about their "wills" and "shalls," they express the wish that a bird would "quit [sic] making such a racket," and the little girl threatens to tell her father "on" [sic] somebody. The excursions are made on a tricycle, "rimmed with the prisoned viewless wind" (Anglicè, with pneumatic tyres), a phrase which shows that the author's command of language is as great as ever. Further, they are made in Galloway and Wales, which in itself is sufficient guarantee that there are plenty descriptions of Finally, we scenery and of nature. read that the daughter was wont to "temper the observation of nature with chocolate," an expression which should satisfy any one that Mr. Crockett's wit and humor are at their brightest. Those, in short, who relish the worst mannerisms of Mr. Dickens inextricably blended with the worst mannerisms of Mr. Kipling, will find here an abundant feast. Doubtless the taste takes some time to acquire. We are well aware that we have been able to pass in review but a very small proportion of what may be called the current literature of the schoolroom. We have said nothing, for example, of periodicals like Little Folks, or the praiseworthy Boys' Own Paper, or the Girls' Own Paper, which reflects too much the sentiments of second-rate schoolgirls to be quite satisfactory, though, of course, it is absolutely unobjectionable. Nor have we bestowed that share of attention which they deserve upon the numerous works of adventure and travel with which the press still groans to please the British boy. At a time when "Tales of a Grandfather" has been banished from schools, whose head-masters ought to know a great deal better, to make room for mechanical compilations of history where the whine of the Puritan keeps melodious concert with the snuffle of the Cameronian, it is truly cheering to come across Mr. Lang's true storybooks, where many gallant deeds are not unworthily recorded, and whence every true-hearted boy and girl will delight to imbibe sentiments of the noblest patriotism. But our excuse for treating thus cavalierly the literature of what Ouida used to call "deringdo" is a happy one; none other than that the tide is setting strongly in its favor, and that the reading world devours nothing more eagerly than the works of Mr. Stanley Weyman, and of his school ---Good hunting to them! as they say in the jungle. Some of the old brigade, alas! have passed away. "Kingston and Ballantyne the brave" are no more. The latter, perhaps, never met with 1 The True Story-Book. The Red True StoryBook. London: Longmans & Co., 1894, 1895. due recognition, for, unless memory plays us false, "Gascoyne, the SandalWood Trader," was as sound a piece of work after its kind as a boy need wish to read. But Mr. Henty is still with us, and others not a few, who, like the veteran Blenkinsop, may justly be termed "favorites of the British public," and whose indefatigable pens gladden the boyish heart anew once a year. Nor let us forget the writers in another strain and of another sex. Miss Yonge, luckily, is well to the fore, whose "Daisy Chain," simple, pathetic, and unpretending as it is, might well teach many a latter-day novelist some of the essentials of her art: could the belief once be eradicated that that art consists in bad grammar, labored smartness, and general immodesty. Then there is Mrs. Molesworth, who ingratiated herself with children once for all through the medium of "Carrots;" not to mention a host of others, to all of whom, jointly and severally, "Maga❞ wishes length of days and strength of elbow. The history of children's literature during the last century and a quarter is both curious and instructive. Its earliest effusions were blunt and crude, consisting largely of plain and unmistakable incitements to good behavior, yet never wholly destitute of conscious humor; so that "Goody Two Shoes," informed as it is with delicate playfulness, may without extravagance, and even with plausibility, be attributed to Goldsmith. "The Schoolmistress" and certain other tales in Miss Yonge's "Storehouse of Stories" are favorable specimens of this first period. After the beginning of the century the stories assume an even more didactic cast, and the formidable name of Mrs. Trimmer seems somehow to be intimately bound up with them. The mischief was, as Scott pointed out, that the moral always consisted in "good moral conduct being crowned with temporal success." The immortal "Parent's Assistant," by far the greatest of Miss Edgeworth's works, and the deathless "Fairchild Family," best represent the second stage, the severity of which was also, strange to say, relieved by Miss Martineau's simple and pleasant "Playfellow," with the "Crofton Boys" and "Feats on the Fiord," which modern enterprise has, we believe, reproduced in a penny edition! After a long period the reaction came--not indeed until early-Victorians had become middle-Victorians; and a return to nature was effected by the simple processes of making the childhero as wilfully and knowingly naughty as possible, and of throwing in an occasional deathbed. That reaction has itself disappeared; the taste for sentimentally mischievous brats has been lost, and though, as we have said, selfconsciousness is still rampant, there are hopeful signs of a closer approximation to reality and good sense. In respect, then, of their choice of reading, the children of to-day are much more fortunate than their grandparents; for they have not merely the excellent entertainment provided by contemporary writers, but they have also the pick of the didactic literature, which has lost all its sting. How good some of it is! No child worth his salt will be bored by "Sandford and Merton" or the "Fairchild Family," for no child will take them au sérieux. On the contrary, a child will revel in their archaic oddity. There is little risk of his being made a curmudgeon of by "Waste Not, Want Not," as Sir Walter Scott feared; for he will taste with infinite gusto, if not with complete appreciation, the latent humors of that and many another tale by Miss Edgeworth. As we have remarked in the case of fairy stories, the distinctive diction, and the unaccustomed turns of thought and expression, will prove an inexhaustible source of delight to any child blessed with a measure of imagination. We cannot close these desultory observations without paying a tribute of heartfelt admiration to a couple of works which should ever occupy the most honored place in the schoolroom bookcase, after fairy tales. "Robinson Crusoe," and the "Arabian Nights." One is Captain Marryat's "Masterman Ready." Suggested by the "Swiss Family Robinson"-a book written by a prig for prigs about prigs-it has completely staved in that veritable boat of tubs, if we may use an appropriate metaphor. But to be done full justice to, it must be read in an edition containing the old-fashioned cuts, where Mr. Seagrave is discovered catching turtle, felling trees, and generally perambulating his desert isle in a tall hat, a swallow-tail coat, and an irreproachable pair of white ducks with straps. The other work to which we refer was written by Miss Catherine Sinclair, and appeared as a timely protest against the excesses of the didactic school. It is probably the most natural, unaffected, and charming account of the life of a little boy and his sister that has ever been presented to the world, as every one familiar with it will agree. For who that has ever trembled at Mrs. Crabtree, laughed at Lord Rockville, adored Uncle David, and alternately wept and laughed with Harry and Laura, but will gladly echo our all-too inadequate and feeble panegyric of the incomparable "Holiday House"? From Macmillan's Magazine. "I am leaving you alone in the world, Thomas, but I think you will do honestly and well. You have but two things to think of: yourself and your craft. Never demean yourself for an advantage to yourself. That way you will succeed with the only success worth having." Such was the dying advice which young Thomas Cathro received from his father. Some days later, on his return from the kirkyard where he had laid to rest the remains of a parent whom he had both revered and loved, he sat down in the silent house and took account of his position. His years were twenty-one, and he was fairly master of the craft of clockmaking. Under the wise guidance of his father, and aided by a naturally serious and well-balanced temperament of his own, he had employed the years |