Advice to those who are about to give Easter presents—send to Macmillan's for "The Nursery 'Alice,'" who re-appears "as fresh as paint," that is, with twenty-four of "Our Mr. Tenniel's" illustrations, coloured by Miss Gertrude Thomson, under his direction.
The Universal Review is specially noteworthy for a short play by Mr. W. L. Courtney, entitled, Kit Marlowe's Death. Mr. Bourchier of the St. James's, so it is stated, is going to add this "Kit" to his theatrical wardrobe. Some of the stage-directions,—such, for instance, as "They pour out wine in his cup, which he swallows," and "The others laugh at Nash's expense,"—are well worth all the money that the spirited purchaser may have paid for this almost priceless work. In the same Magazine, the coloured frontispiece of "Count Tolstoy at Home," showing the Count, not labouring in the fields of literature, but simply guiding the plough, is as good as the article on the Kreutzer Sonata is interesting; and interesting also is the paper entitled, "Musings in an English Cathedral," by the Dean of Gloucester,—henceforth to be known as "A Musing Dean."
Mr. Andrew Lang in Longman's—or rather Lang-man's—Magazine, is still stopping at "The Sign of The Ship"—[The Baron moves "that the words 'and Turtle' be inserted after 'Ship'">[—and as he has recently been delighting us with wanders in the land of Ham, it will gratify his readers to learn, that he is now ceasing to be "All for 'Hur,'" in order to join the author of She in a plot for a new romance. They are undeterred by the eye of Detective Runciman. I wish success to Merry Andrew Languid in this collaboration. In this same Lang-man's Mag., Mr. Val Prinsep, A.R.A., having temporarily dissociated himself from the paint-brush and canvas, by which he has made his name and fame, continues his novel Virginie. In the present chapter he incidentally gives a description of the service of Mass in the good Abbé Leroux's parish church, which is a triumph of imagination and subtle humour. No wonder "the Abbé Leroux was scandalised," when the service had been turned topsy-turvy, the credo put before the gloria, and a young person among his congregation, topping all other voices, was singing a solo! Where was the Beadle? or a Churchwarden? or an Aggrieved Parishioner? Three cheers for Facile Prinsep's novel!
In Plain Tales from the Hills, by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, the jaded palate of the "General Reader" will recognise a new and piquant flavour. In places the manner suggests an Anglo-Indian Bret Harte, and there is perhaps too great an abundance of phrases and local allusions which will be dark sayings to the uninitiated. But the stories show a quite surprising knowledge of life, a familiarity with military, civil, and native society, and a command of pathos and humour, which have already won a reputation for the author. Few can read Beyond the Pale, The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly, The Story of Muhammed Din, The Germ Destroyer, and The Madness of Private Ortheris, for example, without admiration for the versatility which can cover so wide a range, and impress, amuse, or touch with the same ease and epigrammatic conciseness.
Baron de Book-worms & Co.
THE ROOT OF THE MATTER.
(The Sporting M.P.'s Straight Tip to Trevelyan.)
In the intervals of Sport
M.P.'s vamp the country's work,