| | | | Numerous as are the books written specially for the | amusement and instruction of young people, it is | impossible to look over a shelf of them without being | painfully convinced that, for the most part, they are | miserable failures. How childish ~~ a very different thing | from childlike ~~ are some, how weak and twaddling are | others! How dry and uninteresting those that aim at | cultivating the understanding, how full of mawkish | religious sentimentality and morbid feeling those that | address themselves to the heart! With what wretched food | is the imagination supplied, how unreal are the stories in | which impossible paragons of perfection serve no other | purpose than to run the risk of exciting the dislike of | healthy-natured children to goodness itself! That children | love the purely ideal is evident from the delight they take | in fairy tales. But even these would lose their charm if the | opposing principles of good and evil were not always | represented; and though they will be content that in fairy | natures, which they instinctively feel to be different from | their own, the struggle between the two principles should | not always take place in the same person, they will never | be satisfied with, take any interest in, or derive any good | from attempted pictures of real life, unless they can see | either the actual struggle or its fruits exhibited in every | character of the story. | Nothing, in fact, is more difficult than to write a really | good book for the young; and it is no wonder that it should | be so, since it requires the keen perception and piercing | eye of genius to understand child natures. Without being | able to sympathize with them in all things, it is in vain to | hope either to stir the depths of their hearts, or to write to | the heights ~~ much more lofty than we are accustomed to | deem them ~~ of their understanding. Who then is | sufficient for these things? A mother in her peculiar | province; and for the rest, genius alone, for it alone can | become all things to all minds and all seasons of life. | Therefore, when we see men of acknowledged power | engaged in writing for the young, we feel that they could | not better employ the high gifts with which God has | blessed them, whilst we also regret that so few should | think it worth their while to devote themselves to labours | that are sure to repay them beyond their highest hopes. | Amongst the most admirable books that have ever been | written for children, we shall not very greatly err in giving | the highest place to those of Sir Walter Scott. And if we | would seek to discover the secret of the success of his | Tales of a Grandfather, | | we believe that we should find it mainly to consist in the | tone of chivalry with which they are imbued. The young | are by nature chivalrous, and it is in the apparent | impossibility of extinguishing this spirit altogether that our | principal hope for future generations lies. Anything, | therefore, that adds fuel to the flame is most acceptable, | and we hail, with peculiar thankfulness, every attempt to | cherish and increase in their hearts a feeling so noble, so | pure, and so unworldly ~~ one which, in after life, will be | among the surest safeguards against evil, and the best | incentives to good. For this reason we cordially welcome | the Lances of Lynwood, which | we are sure will be read by the young (and not by the | young alone) with as earnest an interest and as deep a | delight as its predecessor the Little | Duke, which we have seen children listening to with | half open mouth and eager eye, and all the signs of | interested and abstracted attention. To give an outline of | the story would be but to destroy the freshness of its | interest for the reader. Suffice it to say that the scene is | laid partly in France and partly in England, that the | characters belong to one of the most stirring and | prosperous periods of English history ~~ the reign of | Edward III ~~ and that the hero, young Eustace Lynwood, | although he is almost perfection, never becomes | uninteresting, but from first to last, through all his trials | and difficulties, has our heartiest sympathy and our most | earnest wishes for his welfare. | we have a right to look | for great things from him, and we are never disappointed. | Some portions of the book ~~ especially that in which the | young Sir Eustace is appointed governor of the Chateau de | Norbelle, which his enemies have found means of filling | with a treacherous garrison ~~ remind us strongly of | Ivanhoe; and that the author does not | suffer by the comparison will, we think, be evident from | the following quotation, in which the wounded Sir Eustace | is represented as lying on his pallet, listening to the fight | that is going on outside: ~~ | | This Gaston D'Aubricour, by the way, is one of the best | drawn characters in the story, and it requires but little | acquaintance with the old chronicles of the times to feel | how life-like a portrait it is. Then there is Leonard Ashton, | a type of lower nature, a spirited sketch of Bertrand du | Gueselin, and a lovely picture of Arthur Lynwood, | Eustache's nephew; and of ladies, we have Arthur's mother | and the maiden of Eustace's love, both perfect of their | kind. The local colouring is never lost sight of, and the | language though removed from quaintness and not | burdened with obsolete words, sufficiently resembles that | in use at the period to be in harmony with the speakers. | We have but one more remark to make, which is, that our | readers need only pass in review the works of the author | of the Lances of Lynwood to be | convinced of the truth of our axiom that genius can | become all things to all men. The hand that drew with | such delicate refinement the exquisite portrait of Violet | Martindale is the same that portrayed with such masterly | pencil the Heir of Redclyffe. The pen that gave us such a | beautiful sketch of child-life in modern days in the | Castle Builders, shows itself equally | at home in gone-by times and amid the most exciting | scenes of English history, as pictured in the story of the | Little Duke and of the | Lances of Lynwood; and difficult | indeed we should find it to decide whether to her domestic | cabinet pictures or to her historical sketches the palm | ought to be assigned. | Our notice of the Lances of Lynwood | would scarcely be complete without some allusion | to the illustrations by which it is accompanied. These | strike us as being most masterly and beautiful, full alike of | power and grace. We can scarcely glance at them without | being reminded of the great advance which has been made | within the last twenty years in the illustrations of | children's books. Formerly, we seem to have thought it a | matter of no consequence how careless, how untrue to | nature, how vulgar and absolutely repulsive, were the | pictures with which we disfigured them. Happily for the | present generation, we appear to have at last awakened to | the consciousness that, if we expect the young to have | refined tastes, and to appreciate beauty when they grow | up, it is necessary that from their very earliest years we | should set before them examples of the very highest kinds | of beauty, and surround them with things that are really | calculated to delight the eye for ever.