The association of the line--


In wit a man, simplicity a child--


is so happy as to be applicable to the Poet of all Nature. It expresses
as much, if not more merit, than any single line often quoted, and its
frequent repetition has probably induced us to consider the latter
half--"simplicity a child"--as the peculiar talent of writing for
young people, aimed at by many, yet accomplished by so few. What is it
that so delights the young reader--we may say ourselves--in Robinson
Crusoe[3]--the Shakspeare of the play-ground--but _simplicity;_
and where, among the thousands of nursery books that have since been
written, can we find its match? In childhood, youth, manhood, and old
age, this is the great charm of life; and even the vitiated appetite is
not unfrequently coaxed into amendment by its very delightful character
when contrasted with coarser enjoyments. Metaphysicians deal out this
fact to the world over and over again, and all the philosophy of Locke,
Newton, and Bacon would be of little worth without it.

[3] A few weeks since we gave a copy of Robinson Crusoe to a young
man, "whose education had been neglected," and who had never
read this delightful book: the account of his delight from its
perusal has more than recompensed us tenfold.

But this is too philosophical a strain for noticing a child's book--a
little volume that is among books what a child is in human nature--"man
in a small letter;" and such is Mrs. Watt's "New Year's Gift." To