The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-19 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Cervantes' Don Quixote.— Illustrated by Gustave
Dore. One vol. Pp. 737. Cassell, Petter,
and Galpin.
A sumptuous volume—ponderous only in a mate-
rial sense—is this glory of Light Literature. Gus-
tave Dore de France (or, as we suppose we might
rather say, de Paris) and Miguel Cervantes de
Saavedra are congenial spirits. They harmonise
wonderfully well when brought thus directly into
companionship. Pen and pencil, wielded by
their hands, dance the wildest fandangocs
together over the pages as we turn them--
and we know not which of the two the more
extravagantly in an utter abandon of the very
wildest eccentricity. Spreading the huge volume
open—upon the support of no flimsy reading-desk,
but of some substantial table, worthy of the weigh t,
we bid adieu to gravity or sadness, to pensive medi-
tation or to serious thought of any kind upon the
instant, nay, in point of fact, until some consider-
able time after we have shut the massive tome toge-
ther to recover from the side-shaking laughter
of which the book is provocative at almost every
turn of the leaf. Four hundred illustrations are here
scattered affluently through the glorious letterpress.
Four hundred drawings from about the most rapid
pencil surely in all Christendom—the pencilof Gus-
tave Dor6 ! A daringly imaginative artist, who, al-
though as yet in the very flower of his manhood,
has illustrated thus abundantly and enduringly such
widely contrasting works as the Holy Bible, as Dante's
" Divine Comedy," as this very work before us of
Cervantes' " Don Quixote," and among others again
of such a preposterous book as the anonymous
" Adventures of Baron Munchausen." No wonder
with a pencil so free, so bold, so untiring, so
ambitious, that this young French draughts-
man has won his way well to the front already.
If his repute required justification, as being,
in truth, thoroughly well deserved, it would be
sufficient to turn over the leaves of merely a very
few chapters of his illustrated edition of the Holy
Bible. Apart from that—his opus magnum as an illus-
trator—." Don Quixote" is almost sufficient for the
same purpose—that is, in the way of affording that
same kind of justification. The English version of the
work—carefully edited, in the revision of the text of
it, by J. M. Clark, M.A., and preceded by a brief but
adequate biographical notice from the pen of T.
Teignmouth Shore, M.A.—has been issued from the
press as a veritable edition de luxe by one of the
great popular publishing houses of the day—that of
the Messrs. Cassell, fetter, and Galpin. On its
production they have manifestly lavished all the
resources of their immense establishment.

The Bible Dictionary. Two Vols., pp. 1141. Cassell

Petter, and Galpin.

Another costly publication by the same house,
but one of a very different character from the work
just noticed. Designed for the bookshelves as a
work of reference, and, as such, appropriately clad
in serious, even sombre, binding, the " Bible Dic-
tionary" forms a striking contrast, even in its exter-
nal appearance, when placed side by side with the
gorgeously emblazoned bevilled binding of Dore's
" Don Quixote." Divided into two weighty volumes
—the first ranging from Aaron to Izri (pp. 573)_._
the second from Jaakan to Zuzims (pp. 568)—the
Dictionary under notice is embellished with a pro-
fusion of eminently useful explanatory woodcuts,
distributed in amongst the letter-press, to the num-
ber of very nearly six hundred engravings. Taking
the information here compacted together as a
whole, it is, of course, indisputable (Thais cela va sans
dire) that scarcely two individuals out of the entire
population of these islands could anywhere be found
who would pronounce it to be orthodox. Yet what
marvel can there possibly be in that—remembering
what was said of this country, so wittily, nearly
a hundred years ago, by Marie Aeouet de
Voltaire, when he spoke of England, with
his ineffable sneer, as that laud of a hundred
religions and one sauce. Setting aside all ques-
tion as to the work's having any value at all upon
doctrinal points, it is full of interest, and of value,
and of perfectly reliable information of various
kinds—geographical, historical, archaeological, philo-
logical, and otherwise.

Christian's Mistake. By the Author of " John
Halifax." One Vol., pp. 320. Hurst and

Blackett.

A charming new edition of a very charming tale
is this reprint of Miss Dinah Mulock's affecting
story, entitled " Christian's Mistake." As a frontis-
piece embellishment, F. Sandys has depicted Chris-
tian herself, pausing for a moment, with a sorrowful
expression of 'countenance, upon the staircase,
whence she is watching Lord Uniacke as he saunters.
cigar in mouth, to and fro in the distant river-side
avenue. As the new volume added to the Messrs.
Hurst and Blackett's well-known Standard Library,
the book is particularly noticeable, because of a
change in the general appearance of it, in the bind-
ing and tooling, in the paper and typography—in
all but the size, which is pretty much the same as
that of the preceding volumes. Coming to us under
any shape, however, the work could hardly fail to
be acceptable as the welcome reprint of a general
favourite.

FUN'S THIRD VOLUME—that is, Vol. 111. of the
New Series, but Vol. X. of the Old Series—more
than sustains the repute of Toni Hood as the alter
ego of Fun, or, in other words, as Fun's head joke-
master! As we have already before now remarked,
he is there indisputably as the right man in the
right place, as the round man in the round hole,
or as the square man in the square. Ever since he
took the penny rival of Punch in hand as Editor, he
has not only held his own admirably well, but he
has raised the excellence of the whole publication,
alike among its writers and among its illustrators.