For some days past our table has been glittering with these caskets
of song and tale in their gay attire of silken sheen and burnished
gold--till their splendour has fairly put out the light of our
_sinumbra_, and the drabs, blues, and yellows of sober, business-like
quartos and octavos. Seven out of nine of these elegant little books are
in "watered" silk bindings; and an ingenious lady-friend has favoured us
with the calculation that the silk used in covering the presumed number
sold (70,000) would extend five miles, or from Hyde Park Corner to
Turnham Green.
Brilliant as may be their exteriors, their contents are, as Miss Jane
Porter says of her heroines, "transcendently beautiful." But of these
we shall present our readers with some exquisite specimens. Our only
trouble in this task is the _embarras du richesses_ with which we are
surrounded; otherwise it is to us an exhaustless source of delight,
especially when we consider the "gentle feelings and affections" which
this annual distribution will cherish, and the innumerable intertwinings
of hands and hearts which this shower of _bon-bons_ will produce; and
such warm friends are we to this social scheme, that our presentation
copies are already in the fair hands whither we had destined them.
We begin with the parent-stock,
The Forget-Me-Not.
_Edited by Frederic Shoberl_, Esq.
The present volume, in its graphic and literary attractions is decidedly
superior to that of last year, an improvement which makes us credit what
the Ettrick Shepherd says of the proprietor--"There's no a mair just,
nay, generous man in his dealings wi' his authors, in a' the tredd, than
Mr. Ackermann."
This beautiful Annual contains the original of our ENGRAVING, from a
plate by A. Freebairn, after an admirable picture by S. Prout, of which
the following story is illustrative:--