A coloured leaflet, of autumnal tint, commands me, in the tone of a Wellington dispatch, to “order early” a new “Family Magazine,” entitled, Golden Gates, edited by JOHN STRANGE WINTER. “I have not yet seen it,” says the Baron, “but wish the adventurous pennyworth every possible success.” Its bill of contents announces “a complete story,” by the editress, and also a “complete novelette,” by Mrs. LOVETT CAMERON. This looks well for the first number; and an editor’s motto must be, “Take care of Number One.” I suppose in each number there will be “A Winter’s Tale.”
Interesting reading for the Baron and his friends the Public, is Mr. ANDERSON’s article, entitled Studies in Illustrated Journalism, in this month’s Magazine of Art. Mr. ANDERSON is a trifle inaccurate in some details of his pleasantly-written and generally trustworthy sketch of the history of Mr. Punch, on which it is needless for the Baron to dwell hic et nunc. The Baron remembers the dapper, sportingly-attired “little HOWARD,” who had the reputation of being “LEECH’s only pupil,” but who was never one of Mr. Punch’s Staff Officers. In the same number of this Magazine is a brief, but carefully written notice of the Baron’s old friend, convive, and fellow-worker on Mr. Punch’s staff, CHARLES KEENE. “A superb Artist,” writes Mr. SPIELMAN, “pure and simple”—true this, in every sense—“the greatest master of line in black and white that will live for many years to come.” The engraving that accompanies this notice of our old friend is not a striking likeness of “CARLO,” but it exactly reproduces his thoughtful attitude, with his pipe in his hand, so familiar to all his associates.
Hereby and herewith thanks-a-many are returned to the “Bibliographer,” who is also the Secretary of the Sette of Odd Volumes, for his charming little brochure about Robert Houdin, his Life and Magical Deeds, by his truly,
THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.
* * * * *
A “STERNE” TRUTH (as to conviction under The Embezzlement and Larceny Act, 1861).—“They order this matter better in France.”
* * * * *
MR. PUNCH’S PRIZE NOVELS.
NO. XV.—SONOGUN.
(BY MISS REDNA TRIAL, AUTHOR OF “WEE JEW;” “A LARDY HORSEMAN”; “SPUN BY PRATING,” &C., &C., &C.)
["I think you will like this book,” writes the fair Author; “its tone is elevated and its intention good. The philosophic infidel must be battered into belief by the aid of philosophy mingled with kindness. Take KENAN, HAECKEL, HUXLEY, STRAUSS, and DRAPER—the names, I mean; it is quite useless and might do harm to read their books,—shake them up together and make into a paste, add some poetical excerpts of a moral tendency, and spread thick over a violent lad smarting under a sense of demerit justly scorned, Turn him out into the world, then scrape clean