One or two unpleasant faults are specially noticeable in a minor way. One among them may be mentioned as a disposition to sneer at novelists, who, whatever their faults of conception as to the function of the novelist, rank deservedly high as master-artists in style and finish of method. The questionable taste of such criticism, under the circumstances, is very much such as would call forth condemnation for Howells or James if they had the audacity to practice medicine to the infinite peril of their fellow-beings, and then satirize a skilful and experienced physician whose ability was widely recognized. _Ne sutor ultra crepidem_, or, if he will insist, let not the shoemaker use his last to measure the art of Apelles or Praxiteles. Mrs. Burton Harrison’s “Old-Fashioned Fairy Book” is a collection of fresh and charming fairy stories and middle-age myths happily adapted to the taste and comprehension of young people. This lady has discovered in the various examples of literary work, she has given the public, fine artistic taste and facility. The present little volume is a charming present for lads and lassies, and the stories told are not such as the youngster finds in the ordinary book of fairy stories. They are derived from out-of-the way sources, and though some of them are rather grim for young people, they are on the whole sufficiently healthy and cheerful for their purpose. The chief recommendation of these selections is that they do not belong to the class of hackneyed and conventional tales mostly utilized for fairy book-making. The illustrations by Miss Rosina Emmet are spirited; graceful and appropriate. The last two novels mentioned in our list may be dismissed with a few words as belonging to the eminently proper and virtuous school of fiction, which demands that there shall be a certain fixed proportion of such haranguing as would be ordinarily heard in a Sunday-school, whatever other elements may be introduced to meet the tastes of the novel-reading class. The excellent moral advice so freely scattered throughout these novels we cordially commend as worthy to be pondered and inwardly digested, but probably the average novel-reader would wish for it in a different place. Yet there are novels and novels, just as there are people and people, and it may be that there is a public for just such productions as the above. It is with unqualified pleasure that we commend these two volumes, “White Feathers” and “Katherine,” as quite gorgeous specimens of bookbinding and cover designing in a cheap fashion. EGYPT AND BABYLON. FROM SACRED AND PROFANE SOURCES. By George Rawlinson, M.A., Camden Professor of Ancient History, Oxford. New York: _Charles Scribner’s Sons_.