yields such an aroma of scandal, that we beg leave to suggest an addition to the title. Let it be called, in the second edition, the "Tiger-Lily."

-Mr. WOOD'S Modern Pilgrims is hardly a novel. It is still less a romance. It is, in fact, a nondescript book-Mr.Wood having taken the name of old John Bunyan in vain, for his own purposes. What those purposes are, all of his readers perhaps will not discover. So far as we can find them out, they are to find fault with everybody, and to criticise everything. The criticisms of the author are often superficial, and always extravagant; while his frame-work of allegory is ill-constructed, bare, and unattractive. On the whole, Mr. Wood has come as far short of Bunyan, in this instance, as he fell behind Chamisso in his former work, "Peter Schlemihl in America."

-The Widow Bedott Papers is a collection of popular sketches of rural life and rural people in New England, by a lady. The author makes unmerciful use of the New England peculiarities of character and language, and seems to have aimed at doing for the social world of Yankeedom what Jack Downing did for the political. The book was written by Mrs. B. W. Whicher, who is now no more. And Mrs. Alice B. Neal has prefaced the book with a graceful and interesting memoir. She praises the virtues of Mrs. Whicher as warmly as her talents; and the tone of the "Bedott Papers" is, certainly, creditable to the feelings and the impulses of the writer.

--Mrs. WIRT (the widow of the distinguished attorney-general) has carefully and lovingly prepared a large quarto, entitled Flora's Dictionary. It is, at once, a course of botany, a complete flower letterwriter, and a dictionary of quotations. It will, undoubtedly, be a popular book; for it is profusely illustrated--profusely and showily, though not always in the best taste.

-An enterprising young firm in Boston, who signalized themselves a short time since by disinterring De Quincy's "Klosterheim," in spite of the author's expressed desire that the book should be left in its quiet grave, have now done themselves more credit, and the public more service, by issuing a handsome edition of JoHN STERLING'S fascinating tale of the Onyx Ring. Veteran readers of Blackwood will

not need to be reminded of the power, the beauty, and the subtle pathos which pervade that singular romance. The brilliant and versatile genius of Sterling, which exercised a pervasive rather than a percep tible influence upon the English literature of the times, is most adequately embodied, perhaps, in this creation. "One builds Cyclopean walls; another fashions marble carvings." It is something, also, to have wrought a magic ring, the mystic charm of which will test the consciousness of men for several generations yet to come. To the romance is prefixed a brief, candid, and intelligible memoir of Sterling, by Charles Hale.

-MR. DUGANNE is one of the greatest of American poets. This we say, with fear and trembling, on the authority of Mr. Duganne himself; for the style of Duganne's notes upon Duganne has impressed us with a belief that he will take the life of anybody who questions the perfection of his genius.

Mr. Duganne is an "Iron Man," we are informed, and plays upon an "Iron Harp" -whether it is a "harp of a thousand strings," or merely a Jew's harp, we don't pretend to know. It is enough that he plays so deftly as to have persuaded Mr. James Lesley, of "Ironcroft," to publish his resonant strains in a gorgeous octavo, on very handsome paper.

Mr. Duganne bangs the anvil and blows the trumpet-lauds labor and incites to battle--through some four hundred pages. He is a devotee of that "philanthropy" which an Eastern professor gravely defined as" the worst passion of our nature;" and, in the fervor of his emotions, not seldom soars above the restraints of rhyme and the narrow limits of versification. This, of course, is no affair of ours; and Mr. Duganne might have misused metre to the end of his days, unmolested by us, had he not seen fit to abuse almost every respectable writer in America. When we glanced at Mr. Duganne's portrait prefixed to this volume, we thought him rather an amiablelooking man. In private life he may be all that his face would indicate, but he is a terrible fellow in print. Not contented with assailing all his literary brethren, in one of the most ineffectual and clumsy satires ever composed, he has fallen upon them again, in a series of notes à la Tom Moore, in the course of which he has the

unspeakable audacity to lift up the heel against our own sovereign lady, "Maga," herself!

-Mr. BAYARD TAYLOR has nothing to do with "Iron Men" or "Iron Harps." He is an artist, and a man of feeling, and in the handsome volume entitled Poems of Home and Travel, he gives us a careful selection from his works. Mr. Taylor is a thoughtful student of metre. How delicately true, for instance, is the key of that charming poem, "The Wayside Dream;" how dreary the music of the "Storm Lines," in which the poet has ventured upon an experiment and achieved a success. Mr. Taylor's domain lies in the realm of experience, rather than in that of speculation. His fine poem of the "Summer Camp" would have been finer than it is, had he not happened to think of the "Lotus-Eaters." If Mr. Taylor will compare the development of his "Pard and the Soldier" with that of the morbid and horrible story by which it was suggested, we think he will apprehend, fully, the criticism we have hinted here. For the praise we would imply, the reader will find that in the response of his feelings to such strains as those the poet sang "In Italy." But, why do we go so far back? The judicious readers of our pages have not yet forgotten the rhythm of the "Wind and the Sea," or the stately poem of the "Mariners." These they will recover in the new volume, and other "Sunken Treasures" worth the finding. For instance, such pictures as this:

"AT HOME.

"The rain is sobbing on the wold;
The house is dark, the hearth is cold;
And stretching drear and ashy gray
Beyond the cedars, lies the bay.

"My neighbor at his window stands,
His youngest baby in his hands;
The others seek his tender kiss,

And one sweet woman crowns his bliss.

"I look upon the rainy wild;

I have no wife, I have no child;
There is no fire upon my hearth,
And none to love me on the earth."

Mr. Taylor will see that we have taken a liberty with this poem, which liberty is only our covert way of conveying to him a suggestion. Meanwhile, O reader! is not the picture finished, complete, and pathetic?

A BATCH OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS.-All the

little ones are eagerly looking, of course, for new and bright books. Christmas is coming, and New Year follows. Fortunately for the publishers, each year, if it does not produce a new crop of good books, brings forward a new crop of children to read the old ones.

This year, we have a reasonable supply of novelties. Of these, one of the handsomest and most attractive is Mr. Cranch's story of the Last of the Huggermuggers. Here is an artist and a man of genius devoting himself to entertain the little sovereigns of the fireside, and the little sovereigns ought to thank him. The adventures of Little-Jacket-a kind of diminutive Gulliver-among the giant Huggermuggers,his hiding in shells as big as houses, and subsisting on plums as big as cows, with all that afterwards befell him among that monstrous people, are here set forth with pomp and circumstance of solemn text, and lively, sketchy, humorous pictures.

-The Mysterious Story Book, and Out of Debt, Out of Danger, by Cousin Alice, come to us with a cordial word of introduction from Miss C. M. Sedgwick. The moral of both of these books is unexceptionable the style sufficiently interesting; and they are simply very good specimens of the Edgworth school of story books. To all friends of that school we recommend them.

-The title of the Bears of Augustusburg attracted us to a pretty little volume, adorned on the cover with a gilded print of a great bear, seated beside a little girl. But we are sorry to say that the story of the Augustusburg Bears is no fairy tale. It is a German moral story-the moral of which is enforced by the most disagreeable events. There is a vast difference between realistic horrors and horrors of the imagination. There can be no objection to the slaughter of hundreds of dragons and giants in a child's story; but we must protest against the introduction of bears who crunch up pious old ragmen and respectable mothers, with their great white teeth. There are pretty passages, nevertheless, in the Bears of Augustusburg, and the translation is good. Like many children's books, however, it is carelessly written. This is a sad mistake. It is useless to teach a child grammatical rules beyond his comprehension, if he hears and reads ungrammatical English.

ART

Winthrop Praed, that witty and warmhearted poet, who, for some mysterious reason, has never had his due of fame, once upon a time sang thus of the potent charms of some young lady:

"She smiled-and every heart was glad
As if the taxes were abolished,
She frowned-and every face was sad
As if the opera were demolished."

It is hardly safe to think how glad our hearts would be, could that consummation of felicity, dreamed of by the impassioned poet, be granted unto us; to waste our strength in sighing for the unattainable, is no part of wisdom. But the extreme of misery which the singer contemplated has befallen us, and noware our faces sad? With the old year dies the Opera! Everybody can see the bathos of that sentence. Does everybody see the dash of pathos that lurks in it, too?

In this kindly season of twilight, betwixt the old year and the new, on which the star of Christmas shines, all pleasant things take on them a new value. Men think now more tenderly of those whom they love; and affections that have been too silent, perhaps, throughout the busy year, speak now in gifts and courtesies, in cordial wishes and in social mirth. At such a time all the arts of ornament and of amusement assert their importance in every heart, and the dullest eyes can discern a use in poetry and in painting, in music and dainty books, in merry games and genial acting, in the cunning of the graver and the delicate devices of the "worker in fine gold and stones of price."

At such a time to chronicle the closing of our most brilliant and admirable place of entertainment is rather a doleful duty. Does New York wish the Opera to be demolished? Or do we only desire to have the fame of fine operas, without the trouble of sustaining them?

Paris, with all the attractions and all the motives to exertion of the Great Exhibition, has listened, this season, to no such presentations of Italian Opera as Mr. Paine has given us at the Academy. The Italian Opera, at Paris, opened late in the season, with the Mosé of Rossini (the re-written Moise of the Grand Opera).

Mosé was heard thrice, by poor houses, and was then followed by La Cenerentola. The first part in Mosé was filled by Mme. Fiorentini-a singer who is no longer young. whose voice has lost much of its freshness, and even of its force, and who, in her best days, was legitimately a seconda donna. The rôle of Sinaide was sung by Sig'rina Pozzi-an artist of fair rank; Carrion, a smooth-voiced, but slashing tenor, of the school of Verdi, stormed the music of Amenophis; these, with Everardi, a good barytone, and Angelini, a respectable basso, complete the list. In La Cenerentola, Borghi-Mamo, a tasteful, accomplished, but not very powerful soprano, came upon the stage, supported by Zucchini, a basso by courtesy and necessity, in the part of Don Magnifico.

So much for Paris. We have had Madame Lagrange, the pearl of prima-donnas, who never disappoints a manager, and always disappoints the public-by doing more than they had any reason to expect— Madame Lagrange, whose marvelous vocalization wins at once, and whose other rare gifts disclose themselves continually, like new veins in a mine; and Miss Hensler, with her fine fresh, sweet tones and tasteful method, in exchange for whom Paris would gladly give us both Fiorentini and Castellan; and Mlle. Nantier-Didiée, whose most ripe, rich voice we have hardly given ourselves time to enjoy, but in whom we recognized at once the admirable artist and the gifted woman. We have had not one but two tenors in the prime of their powers-Salviani, who quietly charmed us while we were waiting to be astonished, and Brignoli, who won't be an actor, but who cannot help being a fine singer. We have in Rovere the best buffo whom Lablache will leave behind him when that vast voice of his shall subside into silence; and Amodio, and Morelli, and--but why should we run through the list? We have surely set forth, beyond cavil, the fact that, if the Opera has not succeeded in New York this season, the fault does not rest with the artists whom Mr. Paine has brought from Europe to enchant us.

If the fault be ours, shall we have a chance to repair it? That would seem to be somewhat doubtful now, though we are

vaguely told that the Academy will "not be re opened for operatic performances before the first of March." And if it be re-opened then, one thing is certain, our admirable Mme. Lagrange will not be here to receive our repentant homage. The uncivilized Brazilians have claimed her, and the imperial city of Rio, which we disdainfully associate with coffee-bags has given more strength to the hands of its operatic directors than we of New York are willing to give to ours.

We shall not rejoice in Opera at the opening of the Year. But for both great and small, other merriments and entertainments will not be lacking.

Here are the Ravels-those marvelous men who now, at fifty, tumble and leap, and stand on their heads and are pressed flat and blown up just as comfortably as when they were in the flower of their lusty youth some twenty years ago. Many a boy who laughed the tears into his young eyes, so long since, at the capers of "Gabriel," may sit now beside his own sons to witness the triumph of the old tricks over a new generation.

The charms of pantomime are inexhaustible they win their way through the gravest waistcoat, and find a spot of genial weakness in the toughest heart. "Many a philosopher," says Thackeray somewhere, "would creep around the corner to see Punch, if he thought nobody saw him."

We in America, be we philosophers or not, have a considerable fear of being

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seen by somebody;" but now that the holidays have come, we may take courage from a child's hand, and go boldly to places of no great gravity, and laugh ourselves into good humor and all the good, noble thoughts, and feelings, and dispositions which good humor brings.

Then, besides our pantomimes, we have store of theatricals, those mirrors of the world, set sometimes a little aslant.

Is it true, for instance, that all the successful heads of families in "our best society" are secret swindlers; that all our lady leaders of fashion are mere furbelowed cookmaids? Do we never find a gentleman and an honest man in "our best society," except he be under a cloud of misfortune and civil contumely? and are the members of that "good society" so purblind, so dim-sighted, through ignorance and vanity, that every pretender, every impostor, every

foreign barber-though he carry his basin in his hand, and curl his talk in papersmay successfully impose himself upon their credulous greed of lions?

It is not easy to dramatize a society so fluctuating and comparatively chaotic as ours; but, if it be not easy to dramatize, it is, perhaps, undesirable to caricature. We cannot recommend such fun as wholesome for the holidays.

Nor can we entirely commend the more seemly, and, at first sight, quite acceptable drolleries of the troupe of "Juvenile Comedians" whom Mr. Marsh has brought to the Broadway for us.

Children love to act. Every parlor is a play-house; every hearth-rug a stage for the little Rosciuses and Rachels, the little Garricks, and Keans, and Listons of every household. And since, in this yet imperfect world, even children must sometimes work-since there are still such things as factories, and the race of "small servants" is not yet extinct (alas! how few of such hapless creatures may hope to meet with a Dick Swiveller! how many must groan on into maturity beneath the awful eye of a Sally Brass!)-since such things are, and are likely for some time yet to be, we can see no objection to making the work of children as much of a play as it can be; and we would gladly give an encouragement to all the gay spectacles, and pretty tableaux, and lively, innocent making of fun which these little ones can be drilled into.

But let the drama of children be childlike. Let us not convert these little creatures into ineffectual parodies of adult actors and actresses. The farce and the comedy which are addressed to the perceptions of grown-up audiences, and have their foundations in the experience of life, are sadly ill-suited to these young, inexperienced children.

Often it must chance that the only relief from the child's inadequate presentation of parts which he happily cannot comprehend, will be found in his unconscious utterance of allusions which it would be shocking to believe he understood, and which move the laughter of the thoughtless by their contrast with the innocence of his young face and voice. Were such a contrast what it is not a legitimate provocation to wholesome mirth--another reflection would rise to our minds: how long will a child, thus encouraged to say

things of the meaning of which he is supposed to be ignorant, remain in ignorance of their meaning?

Christmas gifts we must have, too, as well as Christmas jokes. And what gifts are so good as those upon the worth of which time must throw an ever fairer light? Beautiful books-books beautiful to the eye of the soul as well as to that of the body-books that one may learn to loveloving the giver not the less but the more, for the new affection we give to the gift's self the painter's fancies, the engraver's faithful studies-these are gifts honorable to bestow, and worthy to receive. And nothing more marks the gradual growth of taste in our country than the slow but steady elevation of the standard of "beautiful books."

It is not very long since it was hard to find at Christmas any "beautiful books" but great annuals, in bindings like the furniture of a steamboat, or a crack hotel. But we are beginning to learn that a "Book of Beauty" is not necessarily a beautiful book; that the ideal of female loveliness is not to be sought in a smooth-faced young lady, simpering out of a cloud of laces, between two pages of hot-pressed paper, and that a gaudy coat is as vile a thing when put upon a book as upon a man. Witness the number of exquistely-illustrated volumes of true poetry that have been issued and bought up within the last three or four years, and that heap now the shelves of the bookstores. Longfellow, Gray, Cowper, Thomson, Byron, Rogers, Milton-the thoughts and fancies of these, sketched into visible form by the pencil of a Turner, or a Stothard, or a Birket Foster, make gifts that love may gladly offer and accept.

We had hoped this year would add to our store. There were promises of an exquisite edition of Tennyson, and we heard much of a pencil busy on Keats's delicious Eve of St. Agnes. But the Tennyson, alas! has not come, and the Keats has come and again, alas! For this is not Porphyro, nor his Madeline, and Keats must wait a little longer for his artist.

The most exquisite book of the season, that we have seen, is still Birket Foster's dainty illustration of the "Allegro" and "Penseroso." Mr. Darley's "Margaret"

would have been a rare gift! But it has not yet passed from his ripening hand. When he lays down his pencil from that fine labor, will he not resume it in the service of Hiawatha? That poem is so full of pictures, that Mr. Darley might write in beauty upon its pages a criticism that would open the eyes of many who will not, and of more who cannot see with the mind's vision.

Of pictures proper, which are their own sufficient text, we had a word to say; but the unexpected expansion of the skirts of our Maga, which have already crowded out a worshipful company of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans, who were waiting to be presented to a transatlantic public, compels us to be brief.

Yet, we must advise you, reader, to step, some one of these holiday mornings, into the Messrs. Williams's, and look at the exquisite water-color drawing of John Faed's "Scott and his Contemporaries;" that admirable group of noble heads and genial faces, which you know so well in the engraving. They look, to be sure, rather like a conclave, as they sit there about that table, wearing their dignity for the world's eye.

But, could you see them at midnight, you would not think them such very bad companions for a merry Christmas supper.

Nor can we help leaving with you the thought of a new and noble work of Land

seer.

"The Shepherd's Prayer" will make a Christmas picture in your mind.

Fancy a wide, wide plain, stretching, far away, from a hill in the foreground, to dim, distant mountains; on the hill stands a crucifix-a wooden cross bearing up the rude image of Him who came to lead the world into the fold of God-at the foot of the cross kneels, with adoring looks, a stalwart shepherd, and around him and behind him are scattered, far and wide, in boldest perspective, his sheep-a mighty flock, whitening all the plain. Over him, and them, and all the scene, broods a thought, vast and fair as the sky-the thought which Coleridge sang so well, and Browning has sung so much better:

"God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear,

To show they and we are His children-one family here."