No, no, sir, you miscounted; 'twas only eleven. Pray sit still. We have very deferentially entreated the Buttons to produce our cold round and a devilled kidney. Stay awhile, we beseech you, Mr Bull. Well, we are really sorry; but if Mrs Bull is expecting you, we, a pattern of marital obedience, feel reluctantly compelled to cede the point. Here, Buttons, do you think you and Betsey can bring in Mr Bull's greatcoat, which is stretched on six or seven pegs in the hall? Try; that's it; and now the hat and muffler. Allow us, sir; that sleeve's all right; now a little

lower with the right hand : so, that's well. Thus protected, you are frostproof. Let us, before we part, present you with a rare havannah-to be lit at the hall-door, remember, for we are under stringent treaty with our spouse touching the weed. Whew! what a blast! But you laugh at the cold, sir. Many thanks for your friendly visit. Say our kind compliments to Mrs B. Take care of the ticket-of-leaves, though. Ha, ha! true, they would find you an awkward customer! Well, good-night, sir. What a grasp you have! Mind the step. Good-night.

THE days of annuals are over and past. We are no longer called upon to adventure a mimic criticism upon those pretty fooleries in which once upon a time "the most distinguished writers" good-naturedly consented to make themselves ridiculous for the amusement of the public. Those wonderful stories those scraps of murdered drama and sublime blank verse-those invocations of the serene beauty steel-graven on the frontispiece-those stanzas to the primrose, or the snowdrop, or the evening star. It is hard to guess where, fallen from their native firmament, such wonderful productions could find a fitting place; but they are gone for ever from the expensive luxuries of hot-pressed paper and gilt edges, and another race and dynasty has risen in their stead.

Whether it will ever be possible to make verses and pictures "to match" without sacrificing one of the united arts-and whether distinguished writers will ever be found generous or lavish enough to spend the full material of a three-volume novel in the elaboration of an occasional novellette, is a question which we will not undertake to answer. It does not seem at all unreasonable, however, to suppose that we, who do deal for money, might now be capable of doing a little best-for love; nor that, 1 own sakes, as well as for the

the non-producing world, literature and art might not sometimes make a volume-crême de la crême-the chefd'oeuvre in little, of everybody employed upon it--which should remain to our children after us, the true ideal of gift-books, and console the workers in it with the comfortable thought of one true and worthy present, worthily accompanied, to those unknown friends for whom we make all our books and paint all our pictures. We are afraid it is rather too true what Mr Ruskin and his followers say-those delicate works of fancy, those lifelong loving labours of the ancient art, which "would not pay" by any means in our days, are not for encumbered hands like ours. People who, in the false emulation of "society," must earn all they can, and spend more than they earn, are obliged to be very economical of their ideas, and cannot afford to spend the imagination, the wit, or the eloquence which would do for greater works upon a little bit of a story or a morsel of verse. However, no one has attempted the experiment. The old annuals, being very silly, expensive, and useless, have died out like other toys; nobody has tried to get up the ideal gift-bookthe love-token worthy of all the authors and all the givers, and of the very love itself of which it should be sign. But we have not given up laudable practice of making pre

sents at Christmas, nor of making books, magnificent and sumptuous, for the same.

Accordingly these winter blossoms, resplendent with gilding and bright with colour, give to the dingy table before us, at this present writing, the aspect of a boudoir. Never was annual so finished, so brilliant, so gay. Our wealth, our luxury, and our generous habit of present-making, have resuscitated the half-forgotten art of binding books. After all, let people say what they will about the perfect compatibility of cheap materials with artistic form and embellishments, it cannot be denied that art loves splendour, and never exercises its faculty with such zeal and relish as when it works on imperial purple and royal gold. Art-manufactures, like most other things in this talkative generation, have a good deal of nonsense spoken about them; and the Soulages and other such collections, where every bit of metal is costly, and very crockery worth half its weight in gold, is no very convincing proof of the cheapness of art. Nevertheless we are delighted to contradict our own assertion pointblank, and instantly, by directing everybody's admiring attention to the covers of the Christmas books on everybody's table. That splendid star of gold which makes quite a lustre in the frosty sunshine, who could suppose that it was only impressed upon a bit of crimson cloth, and came to us "into the bargain' of ever so many admirable wood-cuts and three or four hundred pages of sumptuous typography, all for one poor guinea? We presume there are few things more likely to cultivate the taste of the mass of ordinary people than pretty books; for our own part, we confess ourselves quite ready to receive any number of practical lessons in this department of art, though our tables groan under the instruction; and it is comfortable to see those very beautiful productions brought, as the advertisements say, as far as it is possible such luxuries can be, "within the reach of all." There is not one ungraceful example of the art of book

binding among the works before us all after their different fashions are effective and striking; but we return with special admiration to the shining golden star which recommends to us, in the first instance, the Book of Job.*

The Book of Job, by John Gilbert. We confess candidly that we were somewhat amazed, not to say startled, by the title; for it is hard to perceive any particular affinity, a priori, between that very clever and prolific artist and the solemn drama of the man of Uz. Mr Gilbert has created the Illustrated News, which in its way is a very satisfactory achievement. We presume he may even be called the founder of a school of illustration; and there can be little doubt that he has done notable good service to a great many books. However, we doubt whether hands so busy, rapid, and clever, were quite the hands to work upon this weird and mysterious story, with all its solemn interlocutors. Thanks to Captain Burton and Mons. De Sauley, and other saucy and disrespectful travellers, we have lost our ancient admiration for the sons of Ishmael. A Bedouin Sheikh does not represent to us nowadays the picturesque and lofty personage whom we used to take him for; visions of dirt and clamours for baksheesh, sully, to our too much-instructed sight, the flowing garments and poetic speech of the heroes of the desert; and we by no means accept a hooded Arab, however correct his costume, for the patriarch prince and poet of those times unknown. Perhaps, with such a subject, the conventional draperies of the old religious art, those flowing robes, vague and unparticular, which attempt no national correctness, but are content to be mere garments and necessities, without special signification of their own-are more fit for the uses of illustration than the recognised dress of a half-savage and unelevated people, even though that dress be the most ancient and the least changed in the world. Being as they are, however, it is impossible to contest the talent of Mr Gilbert's sketches. We select, in particular,

the flying dromedary, with its cloud of desert dust, and its wide-striding hoofs, which seem to turn to all the airts, in splendid defiance of ordinary rules of locomotion; and there are some exceedingly clever heads, and graceful episodical vignettes, such as that one entitled "Distraining"-a well-worn subject-which actually looks novel in its change of costume. We observe, too, a very real rhinoceros, tossing out of his savage way, with his mighty horn, the fallen capital of an Assyrian pillar. A few years ago we might have pointed out many other excellencies in those clever pictures; but we daily grow more fastidious as we are better served; thanks, among others, to the very artist whose performance on this occasion is not up, by a very long way, to his subject as perhaps no other illustrator's could.

For this Book of Job, though it is perhaps, of all the inspired books, the one which answers best to appear alone, is not on that account the one most suitable for illustration. Ruth, the sweetest of all pastorals, or that strange tale of Eastern courts and intrigues, the little Book of Esther, would task less, and reward more, the labours of the pencil. But Job, with its mysterious introductory scene, which is not capable of description in words, much less in pictures, with its long monologues, and unchanging dramatis persona, the four figures who do nothing, and whose conversation cannot be expressed by pictorial representation, must always be exceedingly difficult to illustrate; and can, in fact, only be done at all, as the artist in this case has wisely done a considerable part of it, by means of its own episodical illustrations. Thoughts and words, arguments and consolations, are things which even a Raphael could not draw, nor a Titian paint.

The text of these solemn disputations is printed, in this fine edition, in its true poetic form, without the arbitrary interruption of chapters and verses, and story as it small help

the poem. It appears also-all laud and honour to the reverend editorwithout that intolerable burden of foot-notes with which so many editors encumber our minds and consciences. A graceful introductory chapter, which will be acceptable to everybody, will also betray to all those readers who are acquainted with modern religious literature, that this wise discretion has been exercised by Dr James Hamilton, one of the most graceful and tender of modern religious authors. With his own audience, criticism could neither increase nor lessen the well-established fame of this accomplished writer; and this little introduction is not ground sufficient for any comment of the kind; but had our space been wide enough, we should gladly have delayed a little to speak of the series of modest little volumes, without either pictures or gilding, which bear his name,-volumes almost too little and too modest to take their proper place among bulkier literature, but ranking very high in that limited range of good books, in which the common reader, pious or not, would find as much delightful reading as sound doctrine. We do not profess to meddle with the doctrine, which is not in our way at this moment; but we are quite ready to stake our credit upon the grace and beauty of the books.

But we are, we own it with modesty, the most candid and unprejudiced of critics. From the Book of Job, in which the artist by no means acquits himself to our satisfaction, we hasten to turn, with the greatest pleasure in the world, to a beautiful little Evangeline, in which Mr Gilbert, with a suitable subject, does full justice to himself and it. If Longfellow is seldom great, he is always picturesque; and there is a remarkable charm of wistfulnesstender, pure, and pensive-in the story which here attains its apotheosis. Young readers, and more especially women, will always like Evangeline. Its very cadence enhances the interest of that refinement of devotion, that lifelong melancholy search, never satisfied, never

ending, which finds an echo of sympathy in every generous young spirit. We advise, accordingly, all uncles, grandpapas, and brothers, willing to do pleasure to the young ladies of their respective households, to make large provision of this most maidenly and pretty volume, which would not come at all amiss either, as a lovetoken of a more special kind. The illustrations are all admirable. The Acadian peasant girl, so pretty, so modest, so graceful; the old priest, with his little troop of village dames and children; the boy and girl over their lesson at the old man's knee; the betrothed lovers in the oldfashioned homestead; all these tranquil scenes of humble content and happiness are rendered with a real grace and feeling which every one must appreciate; nor are the merry old fiddler and the stout herdsman of the prairie less successful. Of its kind, the little book is perfect ;—a pretty token, fit to come in, even to the innermost sanctuary of any lady's bower.

We come now to another artist who divides popularity with Mr Gilbert, and whose labours are more equal and more exquisite. Very rare, indeed, are the occasions on which we turn with disappointment from the works of Birket Foster. A true eye for nature keeps him always fresh, always vigorous, and almost always original. It is marvellous, indeed, with such unceasing production, how seldom he repeats himself; his rustic stiles, though he is rather fond of them-his cottages and trees his low English hills, breezy and far-seeing-and his sunny levels of country-have each varieties of their own to distinguish them. His very church towers and he has few landscapes without one-can venture to be boldly alike, because each is individual-and you could suppose every illustration he makes a direct sketch from nature, did you not feel that to be impossible. Of all his many admirable works we are least sure of his Highland castles and mountains, and of the foreign scenes in the Traveller, many of which, however, are exquisite; but

he is never at a loss upon English soil; and, to prove what we say, we have but to glance over the Task, the Sabbath, and the Course of Time.

The Task is familiar and well-accustomed ground. We know almost as well the scenes which the artist will choose before we open the volume as after we have examined it. We are quite prepared to look for the colonnade of Benevolus-" the obsolete prolixity of shade" in which the gentle poet delighted; and for the peasant's nest, the cottage

"Perched upon the green hill-top, but close

Environed with a ring of branching elms ;"

and perfectly confident that "the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge' will find a place in the miniature picture-gallery. They do accordingly; but there are few artists who, even with the help of colour, much less with mere black and white, could present to us such a wintry night as this one, through which the horn of the Olney postboy rings its cheerful intimation. The tall church-tower rising up into the moonlight, the black trees, crisp and colourless, with every twig defined,

"The wintry flood in which the moon Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;"

the entire atmosphere so frosty, sharp, and distinct, are as real as they are fine; and it must be a very unimaginative reader who does not turn from the chilly brightness of the scene out of doors, feeling almost the full force of the actual contrast, to the poet's fireside, warm and ruddy, where already the perfect comfort brightens with a touch of excitement as the news-horn rings through the sharp air without. Then how fine is the waggon labouring through the snow-the atmosphere in a haze with falling snowflakes the horses turning their heads aside from the storm, the man plodding on "with half-shut eyes and puckered cheeks." These snow-scenes are perhaps the finest in the book; and we know nothing better, for chillness and