What are the Baron's sentiments as to Christmas things? He refused
to have anything to say to games and cards. Cards--well, we all know
whose books some puritanical party said _they_ were. But these comic
and artistic Christmas Cards of RAPHAEL TUCK do not come into that
category; and same is to be said of Messrs. HILDESHEIMER's, so there's
an end on't. Henceforth, says the Baron, "No Cards."

"Come to me, O ye children," as some one sings--ARTHUR CECIL for
choice--and it might be adapted for the occasion by the Publishers
of _Chatterbox_, in which box there's a prize. Messrs. ROUTLEDGE go
in for the old, old tales. They've kindly given _Mother Hubbard_ a
new dress; and as for their Panorama of the "Beasteses," it is like
a picture-walk in the Zoo. _Some Historic Women_, well selected by
DAVENPORT ADAMS, who should have styled it _Christmas Eves by Adams_.
With Mrs. MOLESWORTH's _Bewitched Lamp_ the Baron's Assistant is much
pleased. Pictures ought to have been in oil, and there should have
been a Wickéd Fairy in it,--but there isn't.

My "Co." reports that Mrs. GRIMWOOD's long-expected book, _My Three
Years in Manipur_ (BENTLEY), is worthy of the theme, and adds a fresh
laurel to the chaplet worn by the lady on whose breast the QUEEN
pinned the Red Cross. The moving story is told with a simplicity that
looks like the development of the highest art. But the heroine of
Manipur is unmistakably artless. She is content to jot down, as if
she were writing a letter home, her impressions of what she sees,
and her account of what passes before her eyes. She has the gift of
reproducing with a few strokes of the pen, portraiture of anything
that has struck her. The only thing missed is detailed report of her
own brave bearing through the fearful night when the Residency was
attacked, and during the dreadful days that followed on the flight