The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-02 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

,BLANCHARD JERB,OLD'S CHRISTMAS STORY.
Ilfadge ; or the Fairy Content. By Blanchard. Jerrold.
One vol., pp. 184. J. C. Hotten.

As seasonable and delightful a little book as any pub-
lished this Chrismastide is Blanchard Jerrold's homely
fairy tale about Madge and the Plum Pudding. It is
illustrated by close upon a hundred woodcut pictures, shew
ing the child reader the industry involved in the produc
tion of one of those delectable masterpieces. Orange and
citron and lemon are among the candies. Cinnamon,
nutmeg, and cloves are among the spices. The flour
kneaded together with milk and sugar and eggs and suet
into a delicious compost, becomes a depository
not only for these luscious ingredients, but for
countless plums and currants and sultana raisins,
with a delicate flavouring of brandy-sprinklings, until,
having passed through one fiery ordeal of considerable
duration, it attains a sort of convivial apotheosis• by means
of another—blue and lambent and flickering and evanes -
cent—and is crowned with a sprig of green-glittering, red
berried holly—prince, king, emperor of all confectionery.
It is the history of the creation, of the rise, the triumph,
and the eventual dismemberment of this imperial dish
that the author of this charming little child's story-book
relates with a gracious ingenuity worthy of Hans Christian
Andersen. Turning over these pictured pages, and foreseeing
the eagerness with which they will be thumbed and conned
by the young ones in many a nursery and playroom in
this holiday season, when the old and the new year clasp
hands, we cannot but commend the graceful thought
out of which the goodly volume has sprung into exist-
ence. And while doing so we cannot also but recall to
mind for a moment in passing the indefatigable assiduity
of the pen inscribing it. There would be but little extrava-
gance if we were to say of anyone who is the inheritor of
a name already eminent, that, starting on a career of his
own, he is already, at starting, heavily weighted in
the race for distinction. The writer of the little book
now under notice—a mere graceful freak or whim thrown
off in a careless moment like the "Crackers for Christmas"
by the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department,
but thrown off in each instance, however carelessly, most
gracefully—the author of "Madge, or the Fairy Content ,
began the careerhe hasbeen now sometime running so sue
cessfully, doubly weighted in that way as his name itself
indicates. Addressing literally the million week by
week through the popular newspaper his father's
name and genius first raised to its exceptional circulation,
Blanchard Jerrold has, while strenuously discharging his edi-
torial duties in his capacity as a journalist, contrived at the
same time to secure to himself in other ways-a distinct repu-
tation. His books on Paris we would put on the same
shelf as that " Faggot of French Sticks," which, to our
mind, is Sir Francis Head's happiest production. . His
" Cool as Cucumber" is one of the most delightful farces
that ever was written, as anyone who has ever seen Charles
Mathews in it (and who hasn't ?) will readily admit. His
papers on the Poor of London published nearly ten years
ago lend weight to the rumour that he has since then, by
his researches on the Continent, gone far towards master-
ing a knowledge of the condition of the poor in several of the
other countries of Europe. An authentication of this, so far
as it relates to France, he afforded, in fact, throught he
medium of the work entitled " The Children of Lutetia."
He has written stories like " The Progress of a Bill," and
" The Disgrace to the Family." He has written comedies
like ;" The Chatterbox " and " Beau Brummell." And
he has been contributing, fitfully, of course, but
very industriously, all the while to the current
periodicals. It is in our remembrance of all this
industry and of all this diversity of labour that—child's story
though it is—rather, indeed, we should say, because it is a
child's story book—we are disposed to commend " Madge,
or the Fairy Content," with all possible cordiality as a most
seasonable Christmas or New Year's offering. It carries
the young reader off to the ends of the earth in imagina-
tion, enabling him to "survey mankind from China to
Peru ; " and it does this in merely illustrating by pen and
pencil the variety of industry involved in the fabrication
of a genuine English Plum Pudding.