The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-24 00:00:00

CHRISTMAS BOOKS.

THE STORY OF JACK AND THE GIANTS
illustrated by Richard Doyle.
Relieved from his weekly drudgery as a carica •
turist, our inimitable draughtsman, the worthy son of
a worthy sire, is now dedicating his abilities to the
embellishment of the lovely literature of childhood.
Jack the Giant-Killer, the most redoubtable of all the
knights of the round table, at least in the estimation
of our boyhood, has been selected by Richard Doyle
as his subject for illustration. Aided by a pencil of
such peculiar grace and fancy the nursery tale as •
sumes to itself a new and irresistible fascination.
Insomuch that we doubt exceedingly whether even
an octogenarian could deny himself the gratification
of a sly peep once more into those pages which years
and years ago he had thumbed and dogseared. The
terrible deeds of the giant-killer are pourtrayed here,
indeed with a vividness beyond all misapprehension.
From the first time we ever, to our recollection,
witnessed any pencillings similar to these—namely in
some of the daintiest woodcuts in the " Chimes " of
Charles Dickens—we have not failed to recognise the
genius of Richard Doyle in the embellishment of ima-
ginative fiction. Since then his hand has acquired
the firmness and facility of a master. Once or twice,
as in the vignettes scattered through the "Jar of
Honey from Mount Ily hie," by Leigh Hunt, he has
displayed a power peculiarly his own, or shared at
least only by the great designer Retsch—that of deli-
neating more in mere outline than other artists might
do with the most detailed and elaborated pictures.
Here again somewhat of the same adroitness is re-
vealed—several of the initial letters being incom-
parable specimens of the style of drawing alluded to.
The little sketches, for example, of Jack reposing on
the colossal head of one of his defunct antagonists, of
Jack measuring himself by the legs of another such
monster of humanity, of Jack being dubbed a knight
by King
,Arthur, of Jack going with company to
court in the guise of chivalric equestrians, and
of Jack slaking his thirst after many heroic
achievements, are conceived and executed in this
graceful and suggestive manner. Some, however, of
the larger illustrations are of a very superior character,
and in their way indeed may be considered as very
masterpieces. Instance this the representation of the
deceitful civility of the Welsh Giant—the mouths of
the two-headed monster grinning with assumed cour-
tesy and at the same time running over with the avidity
of its appetite. Cormoran, again, carrying off his
booty, is admirably delineated. Jack slaying the
other giant, who is dragging along by the hair of
their heads a knight and his beautiful lady, is a
sketch peculiarly vigorous ; as is also the fore-
shortened figure of the titan from whose grasp the
little hero is rescuing some other unfortunates. The
finest of all these embellishments, however, has not yet
been mentioned—namely, the one at page 47, where
Jack makes sport of his enormous antagonist
,before luring him on to the drawbridge. The huge
and muscular form of the giant is pencilled with a
master hand. Throughout the whole story Richard
Doyle has caught the spirit of the original narra-
tor, whoever he may be, calling back to our remem-
brance all those wonderful incidents of hair--breadth
danger escaped, which thrilled to the marrow of our
bones in childhood. Under his guidance we listen
once again with a recollection of former awe to the
thunderous footsteps of the Giant Cormoran in his
flounderings into the pit covered over,with leaves--we
recall the familiar distich ushering in the later feats
of Jack :
" This is the valiant Cornish man,
Who slew the Giant Cormoran.
We remember his putting the wooden billet into his
bed, and crouching in the corner, when the deceitful
giant, among the Welsh mountains, tried to pummel
him to death in the darkness. We remember the inquiry
of the astonished host next morning—" Pray, how
did you sleep last night ? Did you hear or see any-
thing in the dead of the night ?" " Nothing worth
speaking cf,” says Jack, carelessly ; " a rat, I be-
lieve, gave me three or four flaps with his tail, but I
soon went to sleep again." Then the hasty pudding
for breakfast ! And Jack's leathern bag—filled and
cut open, with the contents dropping down on the
ground! And the Giant's " Odds splutters hur
bur can do that hurself!" Who does not call all
these things to mind ? Who is not still sufficiently a
child at heart to smile at the recollection—and that
neither sardonically nor derisively ? For bringing
these pleasant memories of childhood back upon us
thus agreeably at Christmas, we thank Richard Doyle.
For under the magic of his pencil the dead delights
of boyhood seem once more to assume an air of vi-
tality—" and rustling through the dust of years,
come back green leaves of yesterday." What drawings
might we not expect from the same artist on such a
theme as Little Red Riding Hood or as Jack and
the Bean Stalk. We hope to see the notion
realized by their ultimate publication ; for as an illus-
trator of fary tales Richard Doyle is not only un-
approached but unrivalled.

TABLE-TALK. By Leigh Hunt.
What a glorious volume for Christmas! A book
of table- talk, and by Leigh Hunt ! The very title is
like the conjurement of a large-handed, warm-hearted
friend, to the chimney corner. It is like having a
chair wheeled into the favourite ingle nook for a
dear old favourite, at once wise and merry. We
welcome this contribution to our winter crop of lite-
rature as, perhaps of all,-,the most genial and the most
seasonable. Now that Dickens has refrained again
from giving us one of his beautiful little rose-coloured
volumes, embellished, as of yore, by Daniel Maclise
and Clarkson Stanfield, by Doyle and by Leech—we
can hold out both our hands in welcome to the coming
of Leigh Hunt. Under any aspect he must have
been hailed in truth as well met, but most of all
under one so familiar and colloquial. For his books
of criticism we thank him cordially ; for his table-
talk we are in a manner grateful. Turning over the
volume we are charmed by the diversity of the sub-
j‘scts touched upon, " from grave to gay, from lively
to severe," from north to south, from east to west,
from winter and summer, from spring and autumn,
the rare old veteran turns to us ever with a smile upon
his face, sometimes light, and sometimes solemn, but
al ways radiant, and on his lips a word of wisdom
tasting of the honey of kindness, or of the salt of
knowledge. What an exquisite saying that is, for
example, at page 135, on the " Countenance after
Death "—" A corpse seems as if it suddenly knew
everything, and was profoundly at peace in conse-
quence." Listen to his story again of