OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

HANOVER SQUARE: A Magazine of Copyright Music. (London: Ashdown and Parry, Hanover Square.)-We have received the February and March parts of this elegant magazine of music, which not only equal, but surpass the primal numbers in interest. We apply the word "elegant" in its sense of purity and neatness, both of which are applicable to this publication. It successfully overrides the objection to small-sized music pages, by the clearness and boldness of the full-sized characters in which the daintily-chosen pieces and songs are printed. Such names as those of the talented editor, Lindsay Sloper, Angelina, Leyton Smith, Wilhelm Ganz, Stephen Heller, Molloy, Macfarren, and Miss Philp, vouch for the excellence of their respective compositions. In the numbers before us, each of these names is represented, and the charm of the Magazine is that the pieces and songs it contains cannot be had out of it; they are copyright, and appertain wholly to its pages. Only here will be found Lindsay Sloper's delicious reverie, "By the Lake," or the exquisite "Savourneen Deelish" of Angelina, which almost approaches in feeling and tenderness the pathos of the original air, an air so beautiful that we nevertheless feel regret that the words of Colman's song should be separated from it. Only here shall we find that sweet Rondal, in the notes of which Molloy has so sympathetically embalmed the sensuous words of Swineburne, "Kissing her hair," or Elizabeth Philp's setting of Goethe's words, "O Madchen, Madchen,' "River, O River," the pretty melody of which, ripples on to an accompaniment as pure and simple as the theme. Each part contains two pieces of pianoforte music and two songs, while the price is that of one piece of so-called cheap music.

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Christmas cards, or valentines concealing scented dew-drops, or real essences in a painted rose's heart-Rimmel-to be at the bottom of it; Rimmel, who has really done for certain yards of footway in the Strand, what the simplers did for Cheapside in the olden days-sweetened and purified it. But a scented news-paper! faugh! it is against our national prejudices. Very few gentlemen of England condescend to such small elegances except on full-dress occasions; and instead of jockey-club, or honest eau de Cologne, to inhale at the breakfast table the effluvia of a burnt-out Vesuvian or pastile is more, we think than our countrymen, or women either, for that matter, can bear with. Apart from this error of judgement, and the pretence of a tale with a moral to it (an elaborate puff, from the "Church Union," of Wilcox and Gibbs' sewing machine, which ought, if justice were done, to thave been written of its rival Wheeler and Wilson) we have no fault to find with the contents. A well considered, carefully prepared digest of the week's news, which quite warrants its claim to be considered pre-eminently a family newspaper. The size is that of the Athenæum, its price 6d., and the programme of its contents as follows:-Original articles on the topics of the day; an analysis of parliamentary debates; a summary of the news of the week, and the opinions of the public press; all the court and fashionable intelligence of London, Paris, and the chief cities of Enrope; news and appointments in the army, navy, and volunteers; literature and the fine arts; books, &c.; music and the drama; law and police intelligence; sporting and hunting appointments; banking and mercantile information from the most reliable sources.

CROSS-CURRENTS. By Alton Clyde. (London: T. C. Newby, Welbeck-street, Cavendish Square.)-This novel shows a great advance in KENSINGTON AND BELGRAVIA GAZETTE. the author's power of telling a story, and sus-London.-February the 22nd, 1868, was, we taining its interest; and we congratulate the perceive, the birthday of a new era in the writer of "Maggie Lynne" on being also the history of the newspaper press, for on that day writer of "Cross-currents." Not that the tale appeared the first copy of this ultra-refined publi- is without those faults and weaknesses of occation, printed on toned paper and scented. Oh casional fine writing and unconscious imitation shade of the "Flying Postman," neither "like into which young novelists, like young poets, Bucklersbury in simpling time," nor even like are so apt to fall. But Alton Clyde cannot only "a waiting gentlewoman," but like itself, with tell a story, but also involve and evolve a plot, an overwhelming amount of some headachy and sustain the reader's interest in the various compound, that- Well, the sooner it becomes in- characters, and their cares and joys, to the nocent of this affectation, the sooner will it end. The story opens at Marsh-moor House, appear to us worth reading. A good newspaper the secluded home of a reputedly-rich stockneeds no toning even for Kensington and Bel-broker, Mr. Basil Illard, whose wife-the victim gravian eyes; nor good articles, printed carefully of her father's will, a neglected, insulted wife, with good type, perfume to render them acceptable. We begin to think that wonderful meddler in all our native institutions, who lets no red-letter day of the seasons pass by him without improving the occasion with perfumed

and sorrow-worn, dispirited woman-has taken to opium and her own room, while a rosy, smiling lady-housekeeper, who had been an early love of her husband's, takes her place in the management of the house and servants.

Cunning and unscrupulous, Mr. Basil Illard | scarcely deepened by the picture of Mr. Locke, has not only obtained possession of certain pro- old and blind, and reduced almost to the state perties of his father-in-law, and, under pretence of a pensioner through his son-in-law's manageof profitably investing them, has speculated ment of his property, or that of the morbidly with and made off with the greater part, but sensitive youth, Erie Illard, with his unhealthily is striving, by every means short of violence or melancholy temperament, and his passion for forgery, to get the last remnants of it for his music and his cousin Carrie. Little Mena, too, own use. Such a character, but under rather his mute sister, almost inclines us to think that different conditions, not unfrequently figures in the author desired to illustrate the physiological police-reports, the difference being that there tendencies of such miscalled unions as that of the victims are the bad man's clients, while Mr. and Mrs. Illard. The only bit of sunshine Basil Illard practices upon his own relations. in the house is Carrie Locke, the orphan daughBut we will let the author introduce him: ter of Mrs. Illard's only brother, who is dependant on, and lives with her grandfather. Her brother Lionel had gone to sea; and as his ship had not been heard of, the presumption is that, at the opening of the story, he had gone down with her in the Chinese seas. Fortunately the young girl has a Quaker aunt and uncle, at an old-fashioned farm-house in Kent, called White-cross-Enoch and Rachel Reeve—whose characters are admirably drawn. In their vicinity lives also a Mr. Edgar Darnley, a softened Mr. Rochester, and, like that gentleman, rather plain than handsome. He is the partner of Mr. Elmsly, an iron-merchant, who resides at Brooklands, a village not far from Whitecross, which gives its name to the principal residence. The house, with its finely-wooded park and gardens, is the property of Mr. Darnley-only a small portion of what had once belonged to his ancestors, and which had come down to him heavily mortgaged; but, throwing off the anti-commercial prejudices of his family, he had sought, and obtained, a situation in a foreign mercantile house: and though the de

At that moment there was a low knock at the door. It was either not heard or designedly unnoticed, for Mrs. Illard remained quite still. The knock was not repeated, but the door was opened from without, and a man's face looked in; apparently satisfied with his premonitory inspection, the intruder passed into the room, closing the door noiselessly as he opened it. Tall, gentlemanly, well-dressed, not looking older than thirty-six, or seven. It was a fair face, with closely cropped light whiskers, a high retreating forehead, and cold steel-blue eyes, with a reserve of crafty purpose in them and a singular trick of contracting their pupils when looked at steadily. The large protruding lips were at once sensual and cruel. Phrenologists would have called it a decidedly selfish and unscrupulous head, of the low-moral type, the full perceptive organs adding force and power to the governing propensities. That was Basil Illard.

Though living a sad, dreary, disunited life, beneath one roof, it was Mr. Illard's policy to keep upmarital appearances, and on occasions of company the miserable wife (wife only in name) was paraded at the head of his table.

"If there is a flaw in our domestic machinery, it need not be made a public exhibition. It is not my purpose to feast inquisitive eyes or to give the reins to gossiping tongues. I hope you understand me, and that I shall not be under the necessity of putting my meaning in a more forcible light."

She did understand, only too well. As he ceased she gave a sudden bound in her chair, with a low quivering cry of pain, and an ineffectual effort to wrench herself from his grasp. He was pinching her arm, pinching it with cold-blooded satisfaction and indifference to the pain he was inflicting. It was a species of torture that suited him-cruel, petty, and sly. That was his peculiar manner of enforcing his arguments to his unhappy wife. He was still bending over her, smiling and showing his white teeth, with

his smooth remorseless face almost touching hers.

“You will not cross me," he whispered blandly. "It is only on these rare occasions that you are of use to me, and that is one reason why I do not entirely cast you aside." At that moment there was a tap at the door.

"It is Watson," he said, composedly, releasing her arm and drawing out his watch. "Time is passing, you must not be long. But mark, I shall expect you to be well dressed. You have jewels; wear them."

After this pleasing view of the interior of Mr. Illard's establishment and of himself, the shadows that overhang Marsh-moor House are

termination had cost him some of the best
years of his life, he accomplished the task he
had set himself, paid off the mortgage, and sub-
sequently has let the house to Elmsly, who,
strongly impressed by Darnley's character and
conduct, becomes his fast friend, and eventually
offers him a partnership on very advantageous
terms. Fat, easy, good-natured Mrs. Elmsly,
and her niece, the fair and fashionable-looking
Gertrude, who has too good an opinion of Mr.
Darnley for her own peace, are cleverly depicted,
and one almost pities the certain failure of the
maiden's hopes, which we perceive from the mo
ment Darnley's Newfoundland, "Diver," in-
stinctively makes friends with Carrie Locke.
But we have not yet described this young lady,
who, under the influence of Aunt Rachel,
begins, in her own language, to have
sion for the practical," and seriously inclines to
take lessons in the housewifely accomplishment
of
pastry making; and who,'

a pas

In obedience to the hints she had received, came down in a crisp-looking lilac print, with her sleeves tucked np over her dimpled elbows, her hair brushed back from her face, and demurely hidden under a close net. There she stood, with her brown cheeks in a glow, and her eyes dancing under their long lashes-her blithe laugh ringing out now and then like the trill of a skylark-completely transformed from the graceful belle of the previous evening, who

had prattled polite gossip with Gertrude Elmsley, and kept up a flashing fire of repartee with Edgar Daruley -transformed, but still, even in that homely dress, retaining enough of her own individuality to make her what she always was, bewitchingly original and at

tractive.

cies of the plot. The interest of the tale is, as we have said, exceedingly well sustained till the curtain, so to speak, rises at the end of the third volume, and discloses all the good people consoled, and the wicked ones properly punished. 'Cross Currents" will be found a pleasant addition to the amusing fiction of the The action of the story alternates between the day, and promises well for future ones from the Kentish farm-house and its neighbourhood, with same hand. Alton Clyde has the faculty of its exterior beauty and brightness, and its weaving a story out of few materials: the power homely peace, and the gloom and suggested to develope, in contradistinction to simply dewrong-doings prevailing at Marsh-moor House, lineating, character will come with more solid where, instead of dying, as the valetudinarian study and enlarged experience and observation. Mrs. Illard is expected to do, in order to facili- Some of the descriptive writing in the volume tate the intentions of her husband and the lady-shows an artist's sense of natural beauty-take, housekeeper, Miss Rhoda Rushworth, who has for instance, the view from the honeysucklenot the force of character to be as wicked as covered porch at White-cross : her will, she is roused by a temporary spurt of spirit in her son, to throw off the dreadful charm of the enervating habit she has yielded fertile corn-lands and verdant sweeps of meadow, A genuine bit of English scenery, abounding in to, and assert her prerogative in her husband's pleasantly interspersed with fair homesteads and house. But her resolution comes too late to re- peaceful hamlets; and there were wooded slopes melting organize her household; the crisis of her hus-into deep green dells, where the fairies might have band's nefarious proceedings has arrived, and, true to the principles of his thoroughly selfish nature, he abandons, without remorse or compassion, the wretched woman who had lent herself to all his wicked schemes, and whose only redeeming point of character is her devotion to him.lightful to sit dreaming in that porch, under the The character of Carrie Locke is a very pleasing one. Honest, true, affectionate, and clever; she wins the reader's heart from the beginning; but, besides her genial smiles and warm-heartedness, she has good-looks, a graceful figure, and those little innate piquant graces that are Nature's hereditaments to pretty women. We have not space, nor should we, if we had attempt to follow the tale through all the intrica

sported, and coy brooklets that went murmuring among the reeds, and wandered away until they lost themselves in shadowy nooks where the sunlight rarely came. Then the background, with its zone of hills so grandly defined in the soft blue distance. How deto the distant hills, and trying to pierce the silver cloudflickering shadows of the honeysuckle, looking away line that bounded the view! For beyond was the sea, ever living and sparkling in its eternal youth. There breezy downs, and the fresh winds came laden with were times when its vicinity could be felt, on those the peculiar saline odour that belongs to the coast, stirring the languid pulse, and sending a new current of life through the thirsty veins.

LEAVES FOR THE LITTLE ONES.

THE ENCHANTED LOOKING-GLASS. | stupor, by means of her wicked incantations.

(A fairy tale for little Pajoe.)

BY ELIZABETH TOWNBRIDGE.

There was once a king, who was called King Lazybones, and who lived in a splendid palace, where he lay all day long on soft cushions; and although all the things around him were more beautiful than any one could ever describe, yet he would hardly take the trouble to turn his head, or even open his eyes to behold them; for this poor king was enchanted by a very dangerous enchantress, who had him entirely in her power, and had thrown him into a sort of dreamy

Moreover, long before this story begins, this king had one by one blinded up the several windows of the great hall of his palace, with heavy curtains of silk velvet and cloth of gold, so that no pure light could enter from the lovely blue sky, except what came through a dome of rose-coloured glass, which the enchantress had placed above it, so that all things might seem of the same soft shade, and no clear sunshine come to disturb him, or perhaps show him some soil or dust he would rather not see, lest he should have the trouble of having the palace thoroughly cleansed, or, who knows, perhaps thrown down altogether. King Lazybones had an only child, a boy who was named Prince