We entreat our readers not to receive the above as a squib of invention.  We will not pledge ourselves that the letters are verbatim from the originals; but the loan of the Surrey music and coats to Covent-garden, with the refusal of Covent-garden’s ass’s head to the Surrey, is “true as holy writ.”

Monthly Magazine.

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NOTES OF A READER.

THE BOOK OF INSTRUCTION.

This is styled by the publisher “The Child’s Annual;” we do not think reasonably so, since instruction is suited for all times.  It is a tolerably thick volume, and contains the Easies of Grammar, Geography, Arithmetic, Natural History, Punctuation, History, Poetry, Music, and Dancing; with outlines of Agriculture, Anatomy, Architecture, Astronomy, Botany, and other branches of science and knowledge—­a Chronology and description of the London public buildings.  The contents, to be sure, are multifarious; but the book is we think made of a series of books to be purchased separately.  Every page has a coloured cut of a very gay order.  Cottages have yellow roofs and pink doors; and shopkeepers are dressed in crimson and orange.  Some of the grammatical illustrations are droll:  a heavy old fellow, cross-legged, with his hands folded on a stick is myself; Punch is an active verb; a wedding might have illustrated the conjunction; four in hand is a preposition.  In punctuation, a child asking what o’clock it is, illustrates a note of interrogation.  We could have supplied the editor with the Colon:  a little girl who had much difficulty in understanding its use, one day complained that a pain in her stomach was as bad as a colon.  The pictures in Geography are not so good as they might have been; and it would have been easy to give correct outlines of animals, since others mislead children.  Music made easy is better, as are Steps to Dancing.  The Chronology is faulty and ill-adapted for children:  what do the little dears want to know of the sale of Cobbett’s Register, or Mr. Fletcher and Miss Dick.  There are certain things which children should know, and others which they should not hear of.  Show them as many of the virtues of mankind as you please:  prepare the soil well, and there will be less chance of vicious weeds.  Altogether this book merits recommendation.  It is nicely bound, as the Guinea Annual folks say, partly in Arabesque.

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CHEAP MEDICINE.