The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-08 00:00:00

A kagnificent Gift Book.

The Nobility of Life : its Graces and Virtues.
Selected and Edited by L. 'Valentine. Prose, and
Verse, and Pictures. Warne and Co.

As appropriate to Easter (or, for that matter
indeed, to any time of the year that might be
named) as to Christmas, this really superb gift-book
commends itself as heartily to our consideration,
now, among the spring flowers, as four or five
months ago among the holly branches and the mis-

tletoe. It is, inside and outside, " a thing of
beauty ;" and, therefore,—according to the most
fatuous first line of a first poem, that we know
of in all literature—it is " a joy for ever." We)
consequently, scruple not, now, to call as particular
attebtion to this volume, as though it had but just
made its appearance from the press—a volume on-
we remember rightly, imme-
diatelylast year, being (as it
was) one of the most conspicuous among the poeti-
calil ally
and uefbol
pictorialirseiltdh published,
fclose of
precursors
season known in the old days as Yuletide.
No matter how the time may run on in the
future, the book before us, so long as its
leaves and covers call hold together, must be
fresh and new—as new as the moonmoonin its firs t
quarter—as y fresh as the breath of the morning. It
vu
means offuot_ig
four-and-twenty—not black-
birds baked in a pie, b
pictures printed
in colours, aided by elaborate borders, headings,
and vignettes, to celebrate, as its title intimates,
" The Nobility of Life: its Graces and its Virtues."
And it I urports to do this, yet further, by making
those graces and virtues as they have been portrayed
(we arc quoting the words of the Title-page), 46 In
Prose and Verse by
the Best Writers." Though, it
must be said, we are rather taken aback, here, in this
mention of Prose and Verse, to find precedence
thus accorded to Prose !
i However that may be,
there is the book in its integrity—Prose, Poetry,
Pictures, it
and Pictures—a dainty dish to set before all
true lovers of both Art and Literature.
the e ,
arc principal
allcolour-printed—some should be said at
O
of them
exquisitely colour-printed—either by Edmund
Evans or by Kronheiun and Company. The artists
are draughtsmen of varied excellence. The majo-
rity of them contribute two illustrations, out of
the twenty-four adorning this singularly ornate
volume. J. D. Watson . thus
namely, Religion, supplies a couple—
as typified iu the visiting the
fatherless and the widows in their affliction—and
Justice, as illustrated by the
memorable historical
incident of Prince Henry before Judge Gascoigne.
11. Le Jenne has two—one of them pourtraying
Faith, in the person of the Centurion coining to
Christ—the other Childhood, in a flowery
dingle.
J. Mahoney has another pair of these pictures to
himself —the first shadowing forth Lore in
Childhood, Manhood, and
Old Age, as charm-
ingly sung in one of his prettiest love ditties
by Charles Mackay—the second (in an un-
coloured heading)_ revealing to us Patriotism
in the person of Arnold Von Winkelreid. Two
among the coloured pictures in the volume contri ..
buted by another illustrator, E. 11. Wehnert,
appear to US, in some respects, among them all, the
most successful. One symbolises Genius in the
person of Shakspere lying asleep in his youth on
the banks of the river Avon—the other, Age, con-
soled by the shadowy apparitions of many tender
remembrances. They are essentially companion
pictures—delineative, the one, of the Dreams of
Youth ; the other, of the Dreams of Age. Over the
slumbering form of the boy Shakspere there aro
seen the visionary shapes of the future creatures
of his imagination—. Hamlet in the Graveyard,
Othello and Desdetnona, Macbeth and the Witches,
King Lear and Edgar, Titania, Shylock, and
Richard HI., accordine, to the hint conveyed
to the artist's mind by the passage selected from
"Dreamland." Around the musing figure of the
Old Alan—illustrative of one of the very loveliest
of all the minor Poems of Longfellow—we see the
dimly-indicated " forms of the departed," who
have " entered at the chamber-door—" the
beloved, the true-hearted," who, there, " came
to visit him once more." The picture is
exquisite. It is one to be looked at through
tears. Beyond any comparison, it is, to our fancy,
the gem of the book. If only for the sake of that
oce illustration, as a most delicate tribute to the
genius of the American poet, the volume ought
surely to be placed in his hands on his return, now
almost immediately, to England. As a gift-book or
as a table-book, no volume that we have seen for a
long while past is in any way comparable to the
"Nobility of Life."

Mrs. Jeremiah Ladd, the oldest person in Con-
necticut, died on Wednesday, March 10, iu East Lynno,
aged 103 years and 9 months.