Since Hans Andersen published his last volume a more charming selection of stories than Mr. Oscar Wilde's 'Happy Prince and Other Tales' has not appeared. The lightness and delicacy of touch, the tenderness, the quaint humour with a soupçon of satire that is invariably clever, the gentleness and the unaffected pathos---all those characteristics which made Hans Andersen the 'most fascinating of story-writers, are to be found in every tale in the present collection. More worthy of remark still, is the foot that the spiritual feeling which runs through so many of Hans Andersen's stories is to be found in almost every page of Mr. Oscar Wilde's volume. That childlike simplicity and grace, so rarely to be met with in stories for children, but so indispensable to this form of literature, may also be found in every page, and entitle the author to be regarded as the most accomplished artist who has set about the difficult task of moulding these prose-poems to stimulate the imagination and to direct into right channels the overflowing fancy of young people. It might be thought that a writer like Mr. Wilde, who possesses so highly-cultured an artistic faculty, would overelaborate such a dainty little story as 'The Happy Prince', thereby giving it an artificial, if not an affected, tone; but the author proves himself to be so admirable an artist hat he even knows when to discard every semblance of art, and to appeal directly to the heart of an audience. This must be noticed in almost every story in the collection. There is no affectation of feeling--children are the first to perceive anything of this sort, and ecline to be moved by it to tears or even to thought--but the author is invariably in touch with the little circle gathered round him, and never lets a stilted or unnatural sentence escape from his lips. He never ceases to be entertaining, and this is equivalent to stating that he never becomes didactic. Children have to endure enough that is didactic without having their storybooks written in in this strain. As for the 'moral' in these tales it appears not at the end of each, like the red danger-signal at the end of a train--for people to avoid, but it is to be found in every sentence in the book. The child---nay, the mind, who does not feel the better for reading such a tale as 'The Happy Prince' is to be pitied. 'The Nightingale and the Rose' is not so pathetic, but it is equally clever. The 'moral' is Mr Oscar Wilde's satiric vein. The student who has been disappointed in love, exclaims, 'What a silly thing Love is! It is not half so useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to Philosophy and study Metaphysics'… Nothing could be better than this, which may be accepted as an example of the quaint humour of the volume. The story of 'The Devoted Friend' is a charming satire upon the sentamentalists [sic]. 'The Remarkable Rocket' abounds in subtle touches of the same character, which cannot but be relished by old as well as young readers. The book is rendered additionally charming by the beautiful binding and the delicately-drawn illustrations by Mr Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood.