present edition too small; besides, they do not want to be checking
the performers, or to be puzzled with "stage directions."

* * * * *



THE BOY'S OWN BOOK.


The sight of this little book, as thick as, and somewhat broader than,
a Valpy's Virgil, will make scores of little Lord Lingers think of
"bygone mirth, that after no repenting draws." It is all over a holiday
book, stuck as full of wood-cuts as a cake is of currants, and not like
the widely-thrown fruit of school plum puddings.

To begin with the exterior, which is one of the most ingenious specimens
of block-printing we have yet seen. The medallion frontispiece contains
the Publishers' Dedication to "the young of Great Britain," in return
for which their healths should be drunk at the next breaking-up of every
school in the empire.

As it professes to be a complete encyclopaedia of the sports and
pastimes of youth, it contains, 1. Minor Sports, as marbles, tops,
balls, &c. 2. Athletic Sports. 3. Aquatic Recreations. 4. Birds,
and other boy fancies. 5. Scientific Recreations. 6. Games of Skill.
7. The Conjuror; and 8. Miscellaneous Recreations. All these occupy
460 pages, which, like every sheet of the MIRROR, are as full as an
egg. The vignettes and tail-pieces are the prettiest things we have
ever seen, and some are very picturesque.