The Express.
London, England, 1859-01-10 00:00:00

LITERATURB.

BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.

The Boy's Book of Modern Travel and Adventure.
By MEREDITH JONES. London : W. Kant and Co.
The Kangaroo Hunters; or, Adventures is the Bush.
By ANNE Bowkaa. London : (3. Routledge and
Co.
Nature's School; or, Lessons in the Garden and the

Field. By P. E. Bynum. London: Seeley,
Jackson, and Halliday.
A Child's Warfare. By 'ADELINE E. HEWER.
Loudon : Seeley. Jackson, and Halliday.
Agnes Hopetoun's Schools and Holidays. By Mu.
OLIPHANT. Cambridge : Macmillan and Co.
Days of Old: Three Stories from Old English
Ilisiery for the Young. By the Author of " Ruth
and bar Friends." Cambridge: Macmillan and Co.
The Oneadian &woes a Tale of the Rice Lake
Plains. By Cernsainz Pain TRAIL. Edited by
Amens STRICKLAND. liecoad Edition. London:

Arthur Virtue and Co.
Relies of Genius Visits to the last Homes of Poets,
Pointers, one( Players : with Biographical
Sketches. By T. P. GILINSTED. Loudon: W.
Kent and Co. .

Young England has ample reaaon to rtjoios that
its lot has been cask in these latter days. Thirty
years back it was not an espy task to "nourish a
louth sublime elf& the fairy tales of science, auktlee4
ong moats of time." When knowledge became
popularised—when wisdom lifted up her voice in
the streets—when mankind seemed to have started
in earnest in the career of social profuse, sensible
people came to think that the best plan was to begin
with the young, and to leave the obstinate and the
prejudiced to be quietly dealt with by that real re-
former and innovator, lime. The result is that a
literature of great merit has sprung up, devoted
exclusively to the young. The world's annals are
ransacked for illustrations of the great and good, the
noble and the true. The latest discoveries of science
are laid under contribution. The engraver lends his
aid ; nay, even the writer of fiction, scorning the
robust intellect, condescends to lead the way into the
realm of faery :
Among tha lonely shades of things,
The .hadoery forms of mountains bars,
And streams, and bower., and Indio, fair,
The shades of palaces and kings."
For some weeks there has been a gradual accumu-
lation of this kind of literature upon our shelves.
We owe a debt to the publishers and the public
which we will now proceed to pay.
The Boy's Book of Modern Travel and Adven-
ture, with eight illustrations by William Newby,
must certainly be moat acceptable to every well-
regulated juvenile mind. It contains some good
stones of travel from our latest travellers. The
reader sails as far as Spitzbergen with Lordnufferin,
experiences the terrors of a sou'-wester in the At-
lantic while on board the Agamemnon laying down
the telegraphic cable ; wanders in the priniceval
forests or enormous prairies of America ; finds his
way into Japan ' • traverses the Chinese empire with
the Abbe Hue; has terrible encounters with pirates
in the Indian seas ; with Mr. Layard discovery
winged bulls and lions at Nineveh voyage!) in Nile
boats with Bayard Taylor ; goes lion-hunting with
Dr. Livingstone, Gordon Cumming, and Jules Ger-
rard ; is told all about savages and Spanish bull-
fights and the Mexican war and British adventures
in Asia ; goes harpooning whales and shooting eider
ducks ; and finally is frozen up with Dr. Kane and
his merry men. The charm of the book is its fresh-
ness and variety. The sketches are short, well
written, and excellent in tone and spirit.
The Kangaroo Hunters requires condensation ;
otherwise it contains enough or adventure to satisfy
the most hungry youth. The story is that the Rev.
M. Maybaro, an English rector, seemingly singu-
larly unfitted to rough it, resitfus his English living,
and accepts a missionary appointment in India. He
and his family land in Australia, and thence proceed
to India—a roundabout way, for which there appears
to have been no cause, and which has an unfortunate
result. At Melbourne they embark in a ship bound
fur Calcutta ; but the captain is • drunkard, and the
crew consist of runaway convicts. And we are not
surprised when we learn that the ship ia burnt, and
that there is great loss of life. The Mayburns are
saved, and the lads build canoes, regain the main
land, find their perilous way through the bush, fight
with the natives and the kangaroo.., till they make
their way to • friend who h coma out from Eng-
land with them, and who msrries the sister. The
tale after all is very slight ; nor does that matter
much, as the chief aim of the author evidently is as
much as possible to put before the young the princi-
pal characteristics of Australian scenery and life,
and in this point of view she has been very suc-
cessful.

Nature's Sehool, or Lessons in the Garden and the
Field, is the history of twelve months in the lite of a
little orphan, passed under the watchful care of a
sensible and truly religious old lady. The writer
endeavours to show the importance of early habits,
early lessons, and consistent conduct. No child, she
maintains, is too young to learn—no child is too
young to be taught obedience, truthfulness, and
diligence, for even a child is " known by his doings
whether his work be pure, and whether it be right."
Perhaps it may be objected that we have in the story
a little too much didactic theology and not quite
enough of incident; but religious parents will be
glad to give such a book to their children, and its
influence on the youthful mind cannot but be good.
It is impossible to impress on boys and girls too
strongly those religious principles which shall guide
and fortify them in their path through life. The
world comes quite soon enough with its witchery.
As long es possible let the teaching of home be
bright, and pure, and devout.
A Child's Warfare is written in a similarly re-
ligious spirit, but the story is more animated, the
incidents are more varied, and the style is more
attractive. al Child's Warfare possesses great
literary merit. Beechwood-hall, a fine old monition
situated near a very retired and picturesque village
about four miles from the sea, on the eastern coast of
England, is the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie,
their only son Harold,and three little girls. Harold,
the eldest child, a remarkably handsome, sprightly
boy, with dark eyes and impetuous spirit, is always
getting into scrapes and forgetting all his good
resolves. The latter are all in vain till he meets
with an alarming accident, and becomes seriously
ill. A change for the better is then eff. cted, and we
leave him on his way to Rugby with great hopes for
his future career.

dynes Hopelimns Schools and Holidays is more
especially a book for little girls. Mrs. Hopetoun is
the widow of a surgeon living on a very limited in-
come, and with difficulty bringing up her four
children. A rich uncle turns up, and Agues and
her sister are sent to a fashionable school near Lon-
don, and experience all the dangers and temptations
to which young ladies in such places are exposed,
partly from her own fault and partly from the fault
of others. The rich uncle dies, and again the for-
tunes of the family are overcast. However, the Bar-
dukes estate proves to be a valuable property, and
great I. the joy of Agnes and the rest of the family.
A more gracefully written story it is imposaible to
desire.

Some of our writers for the young have gone very
far back, and have tried to reproduce old Roglish
life, when our fathers were wrestling with the
Roman or fighting the Hasp, or gallantly crusading
in the Holy Land. Days of Old consists of three
stories from English history, written with all that
sympathy with what is strong and true, and
sterling, in olden time, which is becoming a charac-
teristic of us moderns, and in that bewitching
style which compels the a,tention of the reader,
and leaves the critic nothing to find fault with or
r: Trail. an English lady, and sister of
Mims Agate Strickland, devotes herself to the die-
teat land when she has found a home. Her
Backwoods of Canada is a book that has long
been held in high estimation. la the Comulims