duck-gun over his shoulder. The first
picture displays him setting out on his grand
excursion after game, while on a little bank
behind him, skreened by some large leaves,
sits a Hare, "taking a sight" after him with
her fore-paws. The next picture shows the
Sportsman lying fast asleep at the foot of a
tree. The Sun, with a highly humorous face,
looks down upon him, and the Hare is seen
carrying off his duck-gun and spectacles. In
the third picture, we see the Sportsman in
full flight, running before the Hare, who with
spectacles on nose, and the long gun at her
shoulder, is taking deliberate aim at him.
The Sportsman makes for his home, and has
just reached the well near the door, when the
Hare fires from a rising ground behind.

"Now ran the Sportsman from his game,
Till close beside a well he came,
And in he jump'd! His need was great,
For bang went the gun, and just miss'd his pate."

You see his heels disappearing, at the
same moment that his wife, who was sitting
at the window taking coffee, has the cup and
saucer knocked out of her hand by the bullet;
and the Hare's little daughter catches the
falling spoon in an ecstacy of delight and
surprise,—which must no doubt be shared by
all the children who read it. It is, beyond all
comparison, the best poem in the collection
of Struwwelpeter. The poem of the Daumen–
Sutscker ("The Thumb-Sucker ") is of an
opposite kind; being extremely painful to contemplate,
and without anything picturesque
to redeem or lessen its ugly cruelty. A lady
expects her son to be very good during her
absence, and above all things not to suck his
thumbs. If he persists in this bad habit, she
warns him that the Tailor will come and
cut them off with his shears. The lady
goes out, and—wupp! goes the thumb into
the mouth; and in the next picture you see
the Tailor—a regular German skip-jack with
long flying legs—dancing towards the boy,
and catching one of his thumbs between
his long sheers, which causes the boy to
throw up one leg from excessive pain. In
the last picture, the boy appears with both
thumbs cut off, and the blood trickling down
his fingers. The poem of " Little Kaspar and
the Soup" (Suppen-Kaspar) is not much better.
Kaspar refuses to eat his soup—soup being
thought in Germany to be very good for
children. Illustration of the first day displays
Soup-Kaspar very fat; in the second day, he
is thin; in the third—still refusing to take
soup—he is wretchedly meagre; in the fourth
day, he is reduced to a mere dark outline;
and the illustration of the fifth day is a little
grave, with a cross for a tombstone.

"By the fourth day's end he was like a shade;
About half an ounce was all he weigh'd:
On the fifth he was dead—and his grave was made."

As for invention, however, we find abundance
of it in the tales and fables of German
nursery literature; our grand complaint is
the misapplication of the faculty. A heap of
these little volumes lies before us, each of them
containing several stories, and one of them
no less than a hundred and fifty. It would
occupy too much space to give an outline of
many of these; suffice it to say, that they are
full of horrors and other alarming things,
most improper for children to read, however
they may be attracted by the fascinating
excitements. We find accounts of cheating,
thieving, murdering, the deathbed of a
blasphemer, the appearance of ghosts of
various kinds, and of death and the devil.
The illustrations are but too good, and would
never be forgotten by children of a vivid
imagination. A special example or two will
be enough. In Heinrich Bombard's Drei
Erzihlungen für Kinder (Three Tales for Children)
a virtuous king is caused by magic to fall
in love with a witch. He is already married,
but nevertheless he takes the witch home to
his palace. At the instigation of the witch,
this good king is made to order his queen to
be burnt, and the hearts of his children to be
cut out. (This Witch of the German Nursery
may rival, if not surpass, the worst of our
own.) The intended victims escape from
her fangs; but not till the infant readers
have tasted the horrors of anticipation.

The best of these volumes of tales are by
Heinrich Smidt, and by Christoph von Schmid,
the justly celebrated author of "Ostereier"
(Easter-eggs) and other excellent stories for
children. Each of these writers possesses a
fertile imagination, and a poetical fancy, and
the latter especially has a charming simplicity
of style, and a graceful humour. We must,
nevertheless, enter our protest against many
of the images they present to the infant imagination.
In Der Wunderarzt (the Wonderful
Physician) of Christoph von Schmid, he makes
a poor man seek a godfather for his child.
All those he asks refuse him. A hunter then
offers himself, and is accepted—when the poor
man, looking more attentively at the hunter,
perceives that he has long claws and a cloven
foot! He hastily retreats, and finally getting
into a churchyard, Death approaches him—
offers himself as a godfather—and is accepted.
Whereupon Death, "dressing himself in a
proper manner," accompanies him to church,
and goes through the ceremony in a grave and
respectful manner. To speak, however, in
general terms, this author well deserves the
reputation he possesses as a writer of juvenile
tales. The brothers Grimm are too fond of
terrors.

In the nursery rhymes we have taken
from other countries, it is to be regretted that
we have often vulgarised, not to say barbarised
them. The little verse of "Open your mouth
and shut your eyes," &c., is derived from the
more tender and graceful Italian,—

"Figluolina di Jesu,
Apri la bocca e guarda in su!"