This is the happiest _title_ in the whole list of annuals. There is nothing sentimental or lachrymose in it; but it is warm and seasonable, and done up in a holly-green binding, it is all over old Christmas.
The first story in the volume is Old Christmas; one of the gems or sweets is Garry Owen, or the Snow-Woman, by Miss Edgeworth, for it abounds with good sentiment, just such as we should wish in the hearts and mouths of our own children, as a spice for their prattle.
We pass over _L'Egotiste Corrigée_, par Madame de Labourt--pretty enough--and the Ambitious Primrose, by Miss Dagley. Then a Song, by Miss Mitford; and a Story of Old Times, by Mrs. Hofland; and the Tragical History of Major Brown, a capital piece of fun; and Pretty Bobby, one of Miss Mitford's delightful sketches. The Visit to the Zoological Gardens is not just what we expected; still it is attractive. Major Beamish has accommodated military tactics to the nursery in a pleasant little sketch; and the proverb of Much Coin Much Care, by Mrs. R.S. Jameson is a little farce for the same stage.
But the Cuts--the pictures--of which it would have been more _juvenile_ to have spoken first. These are from the pencil of our "right trustye" friend and excellent artist, Mr. W.H. Brooke, whose horses, coaches, and dogs excite so much mirth among the young friends of the MIRROR--for, in truth, Mr. Brooke is an A.M.--an _associate_ of the MIRROR, and enables us to jump from Whitehall to Constantine's Arch at Rome, shake _hands_ with the Bears of the Zoological Society, and Peg in the Ring at Abury.
The _Christmas Box cuts_ are all fun and frolic--the tail-piece of the preface, a bricklayer on a ladder, "spilling" a hod of bricks--the Lord of Misrule, with his polichinel army--the Boar's Head--a little squat Cook and a steaming Plum-Pudding--the Bee and Honeysuckle--Major Brown with a Munchausen face--the Bear Pit, Monkeys' Houses, and Horned Owl, in the Zoological Gardens--and the Parliament of Animals, with the Elephant as Chancellor, the Tortoise for "the table," and Monkeys for Counsel--the groups of Toy Soldiers--and the head pieces of the Cobbler and his Wife--all excellent. Then the Cricket and Friar, and a pair of Dancing Crickets--worth all the fairy figures of the Smirkes, and a hundred others into the bargain. These are the little quips of the pencil that curl up our eye-lashes and dimple our faces more than all the Vatican gallery. They are trifles--aye, "trifles light as air"--but their influence convinces us that trifling is part of the great business of life.