OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
The Marsh King's Daughter. One of Warne & Co.'s publications for children's amusement, but the illustrations by Jessie Currie are too highly curried, or rather coloured, and the effect is hard and theatrical. By the way, Miss Currie's genius is a trifle wilful; for example, take this situation, which she has chosen to illustrate,—"She ... pointed to a horse. He mounted upon it, and she sprang before him, and held tightly by the mane." Now, asks the Baron, taking for granted the "sprang" is for "sprang up," how would ordinary talent depict this scene? Why, certainly, by showing the girl mounted on the horse, holding on by the mane in front of the man, and the man up behind. Not so Miss Currie. She puts the good man—apparently an Amateur Monk—astride the horse, and she riding behind, holding lightly as it appears, with one hand the broad red crupper, and, with the other, probably, some portion of the Amateur Monk's dressing-gown. But genius must not be fettered.
Æsop Redivivus is delightful, if only for the reappearance of the quaint old woodcuts—some of which, however, the Baron is of opinion, never belonged to the original edition—yet, with a polite bow to Mary Boyle, he would venture to observe that, in his opinion, the revivification is an excellent idea rather thrown away. Whether it would have been better for more or less Boyleing, he is not absolutely certain, but perhaps the notion required a somewhat different treatment. The best of the fables is The Sly Stag, which, according to the woodcut, ought to have been a goat. But there may be some subtle humour in the frequent incongruity between a fable and its pictorial illustration.
The Baron de Book-worms.
Grandolph Victorious.—Rather fresh Easterly-windy weather for racing, last week; glad, therefore, to hear that Grandolph "had a lot on." His Abbesse de Jouarre was not to be stopped by any Father Confessor, and came in first. What will he name his next probable starter? John Wesley?
Recent letters to The Times represent Tangiers to English tourists as the most Tangierble point for a holiday trip.
A MINE OF INFORMATION.
"What's a Centaur, Papa?"
"A Centaur, my child, is a Fabulous Creature, now extinct!"