The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-01 00:00:00

Grandmother's Money. Hurst and Blackett.

This novel, the twenty-third volume of Messrs.
Hurst and Blackett's Standard Library, will vie in
interest with any of those preceding it. We have
already, on more than one occasion, expressed our
favourable opinion of this issue. For elegance of
form, and excellence of type, it is all that could be
desired, whilst the price is extremely moderate.

Intellectual Education, and its Influence on the
Character and Happiness of Women, By Emily
Shirreff. Smith, Elder, and Co.
The fact of a new edition of this work having
been called for is the best commentary on its use-
fulness. It not only treats of the "Application of
general principles to Female Education," but enters
largely into the method of training children, and
concludes with a discussion of " Some peculierities
of woman's social position." With regard to the
education of children she makes many sensible re-
marks. For instance----" Fairy Tales have fallen so
sadly under the ban of educational censure that
they would require a longer apology than I have
space for to reinstate them in favour. In my opi-
nion it is at once a false view of fiction, and a nar-
row view of truth, which would force children away
from those pleasant old paths to dwell in dull re-
alities for ever.' I believe fairy tales afford a far
more healthy form of amusement to children
than most of the stories of so-called real
life that our modern libraries team with.
Those wonderfully good or clever little boys and
girls, who instruct and reform their parents; or
those young reprobates held up as patterns of cor-
ruption for doing the mischief which most children
have a sympathy with, and yet cannot feel them-
selves to be so very wicked for loving ; these are
what really teach untruths, for they give false
notions of actual life, and lead to false expectation
and estimation of character. Like novels, which I
had occasion formerly to contrast with the reading
of elevated fiction in poetry, they have all the evil
of fiction unredeemed by that exercise of the fancy
which more imaginative works afford."

Studies in Animal Life. By G. H. Lewes. Smith,
Elder, and Co.

Those who delight in natural history will cor-
dially welcome this volume of essays, reprinted
from the Cornhill Magazine, on a subject which
few have succeeded in making so interesting as Mr.
Lewis, a result arising in no slight measure from
his clear and eloquent style. Thus—" Nature is
economic as well as prodigal of space. She fills the
illimitable heavens with planetary and starry gran-
deurs, and she makes the tiny atoms moving over
the crust of earth the homes of the infinitely little.
Far as the mightiest telescope can reach it detects
worlds in clusters, like pebbles on the shores of
Infinitude; deep as the microscope can penetrate,
it detects life within life, generation within gene-
ration; as if the very universe itself was not vast
enough for the energies of life."

Horace
Predictions Realised in Modern Times. By
Welby. Kent and. Co.

The believers in omens, dreams, presentiments,
and other signs and tokens by which future events
are supposed to foreshadow themselves, will no
doubt iind this pleasant reading. The examples are
collected from a great variety of sources, and vary
considerably in degree of authenticity.

The Products and Resources of Tasmania. By
George Whiting. Printed at the Lally Adver-
tiser Steam Press, Hobart Town.
Although this pamphlet has been compiled with
especial reference to the display of Tasmanian pro-
ducts i n the International Exhibition, the informa-
tion contained in it will be valuable to those who
may think of emigrating to that colony, inasmuch
as the iphysical geography and the political institu-
tions, e,a well as the coal fields, mines, and pastural
and horticultural aspects of the country are de-
scribed in it. At the end is given an account of the
different vegetable products shown in the Interna-
tional Exhibition, with a description of the climate.

IWilliam Digby Seymour.—The Middle iTemple
:Benches and the Northern Circuit Committee.
I n this bulky pamphlet Mr. Digby Seymour, in
yin dication of his professional character, prints the
evi dente given before the benches with reference to
the charges brought against him, in the cases of
Robertson, Coutts, and Parker, that the public may
j edge for themselves how far they were well or ill
founded. He says, with reason, that he " does not
mean to contend that, if be really was guilty of
dishonourable or unprofessional conduct, six, seven,
, or eight years
ago, the mere lave of time should