Sir PHILIP SIDNEY was, as all the world knows, "a veray parfit gentil knight." Possibility of this presupposition of knowledge is fortunate, since Miss ANNA M. STODDART'S account of this heroic figure is not, my Baronite sorrowfully says, likely to convey any adequate idea of its personality. Mr. FOX BOURNE and Mr. ADDINGTON SYMONDS have written biographies of the Elizabethan soldier, in which he boldly stands forth. Miss STODDART modestly says her object is "in no way to compete with" these standard works. But why write at all? The marvel is, as Dr. JOHNSON did not exactly say in illustration of an argument respecting another feminine achievement, not that the work should not have been well done, but that it possibly could be done with such wooden effect. If Miss STODDART had taken a sheet of paper and with her pair of scissors cut out the figure of a man, writing across it "This is PHILIP SIDNEY," she would have conveyed quite as clear and moving a picture of the man as is found in the 111 pages of her book. But then, Mr. BLACKWOOD would not have published the scrap of paper, and we should not have had the charming portrait of SIDNEY, or the sketches of Penshurst by MARGARET L. HUGGINS which adorn the daintily got-up volume. [Illustration] My Baronitess writes:--S. BARING GOULD turns into delightful English prose some of the ancient Icelandic Sagas, or songs, and shows us how _Grettir the Outlaw_ was a Grettir man than was generally supposed by anyone who had never heard very much about him. When he departed, was he very much Re-grettir'd by all who knew him? Messrs. MACMILLAN offer _My New Home_, provided by Mrs. MOLESWORTH, which many of the little "new" women would like to see. Illustrated by L. LESLIE BROOKE: "BROOKE" suggests "water colours,"--a new idea for _next_ Christmas. _Sou'-wester and Sword_, by HUGH ST. LEGER. A nautical and military combination. The Sou'wester of a tar is not at all at sea when, after a pleasant little shipwreck, he joins the forces at Suakim. The winner of _this_ ST. LEGER was a rank outsider, with the odds against him, but he wins the day by "throstling" (a new word) a few Soudanese; who must have seemed quite forty to one! A cousin, especially a Colonial, is such a very pleasant indistinct sort of relative, that he is bound to be a hero of romance, though perhaps a cousin at hand is worth two in the bush; at least, so thinks the heroine in _My Cousin from Australia_, by EVELYN EVERETT GREEN (HUTCHINSON & CO.); whilst the one whom she should have wed was of course a wicked Baronet (does one often meet a good Baronet in fiction?), who tries to upset his successful rival by giving him a tip over an agreeably high cliff. It is a Christmas story, and so the "tip" is just at the right time. How it ends----You'll see.