VICTORIANS ABROAD

Still another bibelot, this time depicting Victorian swells on a Grand Tour of Europe and (without an apparent break) a visit to colonial India. An introductory note lists the sights in order, and of course an adult will recognize most of them, but there are no labels. Some youngsters, true, might simply enjoy looking at assorted old-fashioned foreign places--characteristic views of 19th-century Venice, Rome, Pompeii, Paris, Nice, etc.--but the prominence given the touring Britishers, reasonable within Goodall's framework, will be meaningless to kids. The Indian section, moreover, is confined to colonial pastimes and pursuits. All this might be regarded as part of the British past, and therefore of some pertinence to young Britons, but American children are apt to be simply baffled.