As it professes to be a complete encyclopaedia of the sports and pastimes of youth, it contains, 1.  Minor Sports, as marbles, tops, balls, &c. 2.  Athletic Sports. 3.  Aquatic Recreations. 4.  Birds, and other boy fancies. 5.  Scientific Recreations. 6.  Games of Skill. 7.  The Conjuror; and 8.  Miscellaneous Recreations.  All these occupy 460 pages, which, like every sheet of the MIRROR, are as full as an egg.  The vignettes and tail-pieces are the prettiest things we have ever seen, and some are very picturesque.

In our school-days there was no such book as this Justinian of the play-ground, if we except a thin volume of games published by Tabart.  Boys then quarrelled upon nice points of play, parties ran high, and civil war, birch, and the 119th psalm were the consequences.  A disputed marble, or a questioned run at cricket, has thus broken up the harmony of many a holiday; but we hope that such feuds will now cease; for the “Boy’s Own Book,” will settle all differences as effectually as a police magistrate, a grand jury, or the house of lords.  Boys will no longer sputter and fume like an over-toasted apple; but, even the cares of childhood will be smoothed into peace; by which means good humour may not be so rare a quality among men.  But to complete this philanthropic scheme, the publishers of the “Boy’s Own Book,” intend producing a similar volume for Girls.  This is as it should be, for the Misses ought to have an equal chance with the Masters—­at least so say we,—­plaudite, clap your little hands, and valete, good bye!

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THE NEW YEAR’S GIFT AND JUVENILE SOUVENIR.

The editor, or editress, (for we doubt whether the former is epicene,) of this elegant little volume is the lady of Mr. Alaric A. Watts, the editor of the Literary Souvenir.  It is expressly designed for the perusal of children from six to twelve years old, and is, we think, both by its embellishments and literary contents, calculated to attract hundreds of juvenile admirers.  Indeed, we are surprised that the children have been so long without their “Annuals,” whilst those of “a larger growth” have been supplied in abundance; but, as Sir Walter Scott has set the example of writing for masters and misses, we hope that our nursery literature will rise in character, and it will not henceforth be the business of after-years to correct erroneous ideas imbibed from silly books during our childhood.  In this task much time has been lost.  Mrs. Watts is of the same opinion; and with this view, “the extravagances of those apocryphal personages—­giants, ghosts, and fairies—­have been entirely banished from her pages, as tending not only to enervate the infant mind, and unfit it for the reception of more wholesome nutriment, but also to increase the superstitious terrors of childhood,—­the