Winter Poems by Favorite American Poets/a Child's Dream of a Star/the Sunnyside Book..

Winter Poetus by Favorite American Poets. With Illustrations. Boston : Fields, Osgood, & Co.

A Child’s Dream of a Star. By CHARLES DICKENS. With Illustrations by Hammatt Billings. Boston : Fields, Osgood, & Co.

The Sunnyside Book. New York : G. P. Putnam and Sons.

Illustrations to Goethe’s Faust. Designed by Paul Konewka. Boston : Roberts Brothers.

Black Peter: Scissor-Pictures. By PAUL KONEWKA. With Rhymes from the German. New York : Hurd and Houghton.

The Song of the Sower. By WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. Illustrated with Forty-two Engravings on Wood. New York : D. Appleton & Co.

The Unknown River. By PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON. Illustrated by the Author. Boston : Roberts Brothers.

ALL but one of the Winter Poems are old friends. They are “The Golden Milestone,” “ Woods in Winter,” and “ Midnight Mass for the Dying Year,” by Mr. Longfellow ; “A Winter Piece ” and “ The Snow - Shower,” by Mr. Bryant; “The Snow-Storm,” by Emerson; “The First Snow-Fall,” by Mr. Lowell; and “ In School Days,” by Mr. Whittier, who also contributes the only new poem, the descriptive piece with which the beautiful little book begins. We believe, not to go any further, that a more satisfactory collection of American poems about winter could hardly have been made, and there is no winter association, either of mystery or awfulness, of tenderness or familiarity, of beauty or grimness, which is not here expressed or suggested. Mr. Whittier’s new poem is of a sunlit, hard-frozen, snowy winter morning, − a walk that the poet takes the reader from his books into the woods, with a little gleam or dream of spring falling in at the close. It is full of Mr. Whittier’s sincere love of nature ; and Mr. Fenn’s exquisite illustrations reflect the poet’s feeling throughout. They do not merely translate some of his expressions into wood-engraving, for Mr. Fenn is an artist who reserves his literality for the natural objects, though even over these he always contrives to throw ideal loveliness. We like all his illustrations of “The Pageant,” but most that snow-drifted, hemlock-clad hill-slope, and the sylvan and farm-yard life grouped about the verses,

Some of Mr. Griswold’s pictures for the “Winter Piece ” approach these best illustrations of all in delicacy of sentiment; and Mr. Eytinge shows more feeling than he commonly lets people suspect him of, in his rendering of those lines in Mr. Whittier’s poem, “ In School Days,”

and the rest. Here Mr. Eytinge’s conventional face, which we have seen upon so many young and old shoulders of either sex, has quite vanished ; and though the picture is only an interpretation of the words, it is very pleasant to have them so faithfully and tenderly interpreted. Mr. Homer’s little pictures for “ The Golden Milestone ” are good, and are full of the suggestiveness of the poem. The young girls of Mr. Homer’s pencil, if they are all a good deal alike, are always pretty (perhaps they resemble the young girls of real life in both respects), and it is a very lovable one that sits looking into the fire with the before-seen well-dressed young − New-Yorker, we came near saying. The conjugal quarrel is excellent, and the little girl’s face in the peacefuller group at another fireside is one to take and hold the delighted eye. Again, and with renewed pleasure, we have Mr. Fenn in the illustrations of “ Woods in Winter,” The effects of sunlight on the wintry landscape, the bit of snow-drowned forest, that flight and plash of wild-fowl into a reedy pool,−are in a manner that we always find unaffected, lifelike, and charming. In all these pictures the artist and his admirer owe great part of the pleasure of their acquaintance to the excellent effect with which the engraver, Mr. Anthony, has brought them into each other’s presence. His work here, as in the “ New England Ballads,” has all those selfdenying virtues and graces which must be more felt than seen by the many they contribute to please.

What Mr. Anthony has done for various hands, Mr. Linton has performed for Mr. Hammatt Billings in the illustrations of “ A Child’s Dream of a Star.” The pictures are such as children will love, full of sympathy and a quaint fidelity to the text, and never too subtile in feeling for their perception and enjoyment. The first five are singularly sweet and touching, and they are all such as will take the wonder and liking of those for whom they were made.

“The Sunnyside Book” is a collection of pieces chiefly from Washington Irving, but including poems and sketches by Messrs, Stoddard, Butler, Read, Curtis, and others. We believe that none of them are newly printed here, and that the pictures by Mr. Darley and other well-known artists are few of them new. The book for this reason cannot claim examination ; but its material is good, and we could easily imagine that it might give pleasure, which, happily for such books, is not always inspired by novelty alone.

Konewka’s “Faust,” good and beautiful as it is, is a less charming book than the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which his wonderful silhouettes illustrated. Being so sculpturesque in its effects, his art lent itself more willingly to the tender, nude outlines of the fairies than it does to the draperies necessary in “ Faust,” and it is at its best here in the faces, and in such parts of the natural shape as are shown. Where the close-fitting dress of Margaret reveals the soft contour of her arms and shoulders (as in the scene of her first meeting with Faust), all the sweetness and witchery of the artist is felt; and in Mephistopheles and Martha the artist’s humor is more delightful than in anything in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Where these two are walking together, and that foolish old woman asks her demoniac gallant about the state of his affections, the humor of the situation is expressed with unsurpassed - we are tempted to say unequalled — force. The Faust is always something of a stage Faust, and perhaps the whole reminds one quite as much of Gounod as of Goethe, of the opera as of the poem. But there is no reason that holds against the assurance of one’s senses that a thing is pleasant ; and no one can deny that Konewka’s “ Faust ” is a fascinating book, or that his peculiar art has ever been other than charming. It is a kind of performance to which one might easily do less than justice, and not so easily do more. It reminds one so strongly of what is very cheap and common, that sometimes it is only by considering its strong portrayal of action, its expression of the finest feeling, and its neverfailing suggestion of the unexpressed, that we can render it due praise.

The danger is greater in the case of a work like “ Faust” than with such a child’s book as “Black Peter,” where the artist, in the abundance of his fancy and sentiment, has done so much more than was needed to achieve anything that could have been desired by children. In this there are such bewitching shadows of little people and their pets as never were cast before ; there are a rough-coated colt and a lamb that caper beyond all applause; there are inestimable dogs and birds ; and as for the small men and maids, and the softly outlined bald-headed babies, they are delicious. The translator of the verses that accompany the pictures has tried to damage the book by his clumsiness, but has only partially succeeded.

The really good series of drawings, illustrating the “Song of the Sower,” opens unfortunately. Of the four sketches by Mr. Griswold, the snow scene on page 39 is the best, being well composed and well drawn. Mr. Fenn’s pictures, on pages 10 and 15, are good as illustrations, drawings, and engravings. In the former it is no easy thing in the wood-cutting to make the distant hill on the right (the reader’s left) show through the trees and yet lie back in its proper place. Mr. Harley has done both. The stem of the nearest tree could scarcely be finer and clearer, even in etching. In the picture on page 15, with the end of a barn, a log, and a litter of pigs, − prosaic elements of which to compound an attractive scene, − Mr. Fenn has shown how a homely subject can be admirably treated, and Mr. Karst has aided by good engraving. The willowgrown dam, and the surveying scene, on pages 16 and 27, are among the best in the book. The picturesque beauty of the former lies not only in what it shows, but in what it suggests. In the latter, the play of light on the ground and tree-stems, the good tone in the shadows, and the composition of the lines, are very admirable.

For examples of more thoughtful study in Mr. Hennessy, whose things here are not all good, see page 40, which is a fine illustration. The action of the mother gathering the cradle-curtain about her child is dainty, flexible, and graceful. The allegorical pieces on pages 22 and 31 are both fine illustrations of the text, and show much fancy and grace. Mr. Hennessy’s shortcomings always seem to arise more from negligence than ignorance or inability.

We intended to remark upon the engravers’ work, but want of space prevents, Messrs. Appleton & Co. deserve great credit for their part of the book. The typography, paper, and binding are excellent contributions to decorative art.

The noble art of etching was never better employed than in Mr. Hamerton’s “ Voyage of Discovery.” His name has now grown in America to be the synonyme of all that is charming in an artist’s out-of-door life, and this new volume is certainly one of his most welcome books. We hope that this eloquent writer and his dog Tom will frequently sail together in hitherto unexplored parts of Europe. It were quite a work of supererogation to point out the excellences in the pictures which illustrate this late voyage. Every one of them is perfect in expressing just what it purports to represent. We will name a few of the illustrations merely to show what exquisite regions Hamerton has lately been exploring. Here are some of the musical titles of places in his list of pictures : “ On the Ternin,” “ Pre Charmoy,” “Millery,” “ Towers of Autun,” “Genetoie,” “Old Houses at Etang,” “ Great Oak of St. Nisier,” “The Bridge of Toulon,” “River Shore near Digoin.” Whoever is fortunate enough to have this volume in the house will have a gallery always new and beautiful close at hand. Hamerton himself, etched the pictures from nature on the spot so that we get in them all the truth and vivacity of out-of-door sketches.