GRANDFATHER'S

Here 1s rather an carlier picture, from a book of nursery rhymes. The legend runs Oh dear ! what can the matter be?

Two little bovs are up in the apple tree ! Which probably contains a great deal of reason, since there 1s so little rhyme. It

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“orr DEAR ! WHAT CAN THE MATTER BEY

TWO LITTLE BOYS ARE UP IN THE AYPLE TREER ' " is a beautiful apple tree, and 1t would seem very wrong to disturb all those symmetrical apples, growing o regularly in order, cach in its proper place. However, the grave voung gentlemen i tail-coats and knee- breeches are carctul to preserve the general regularity of the scene by shaking off all the apples uniformly with the stalks up- ward.

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U RIDES A COCK-TTORSE,”

PICTURE-BOORS. 201

This picture, of a not very well fed gen- tleman riding a not very well fed horse past a sign-post with nothing on i, appears over the famous couplet

Ride a cock-horsze

To Banbury-cross. We print it here chiefly as throwing some light upon the interesting question as to exactly what species of animal a ** cock- horse " 1=, It mayv be as well to mention that in the first of the Tom Thumb pictures, already referred to, the quadruped there depicted 1s by manyv supposed to bea hen COW.

The two little bovs, who are represented in another book as playing shuttlecock near a precipice and a flower-pot, are delighttul spectmens of the sort of boy tamiliar in the pages of old goody-goody books, with frilled collars, and puffy trousers buttoned on to very short jackets. They haven't a great

SHUTTTIE-COCK,

deal of room for their game, what with the precipice and the flower-pot, and a bee-hive, about the s=ize ot a decent cottage, close against one player’s back. That bov is reallv i a dangerous position. It would be so casyv accidentally to hit the hive, where- upon there would probably ensue a sally of infuriated bees about the size of pigeons

~(qudging from the hive), who would set upon,

murder, sting and devour bovys, battle- dores, flower-pot, precipice and all. Irrom another ot grandfather’s pic- ture-books comes a series of spirited pictures sctting forth certain awful ex- amples of children who meddled with fire. There 1s a samencss about thesc mstructive catastrophes, as well as a certain - want of preliminary detail. Boyv with frilled collar and his trousers on fire throws up his arms before fire- place and shouts. Tittle girl with dress on fire throws up her arms in front of fireplace and shouts. An- other little girl with ditto ditto, does