TWO - voLuAtEs OF VERSE.*

Ix choosing between the three principal poems of this volume— "In an Indian Temple," "A Casket of Gems," and "A Queen's Revenge "—we have little doubt about giving the palm to the first. Mr. Arnold has here a subject that snits him exactly,—a problem in ethics which has to be regarded now from the Eastern, now from the Western point of view, and which he has to pre- sent to the reader amidst picturesque Oriental surroundings.

The temple,—

" White and fair, Piercing the warm blue Indian air With painted cupola ;"

the images within—Parvati, "with great eyes jewelled," and Ganpati, with "broken tusk and trunk of elephant "—the "blue

cloud" of pigeons, familiar pensioners of the shrine; Govind the priest, "immeasurably wise ;" Gunge the nantch-girl ; and the English Saheb, are skilfully wrought into a striking picture Govind expounds his philosophy of the soul, a very subtle theory indeed, but resulting in something curiously like Antinomianism. The Saheb interposes with the question,— "I ask, Right learned Friend, why Good and Evil cease Because Soul sleeps P"

and receives the answer,—

" Surely such names subsist In worlds of 'mine' and thine,' of this and that,' Of praise and blame.' Where all things melt in one, Evil and Good are fled to plague no more."

But the Saheb has a question of casuistry which the priest does not find it easy to answer. In a conflict of duties, each, by Brahma's code, of absolute necessity, wifely fidelity, and the obligation of hospitality, which is to be preferred ? The tale which illustrates the question is too long to quote, and cannot be abridged. It must suffice to say that it is most effectively

pathetic.

The "Casket of Gems" strikes us as showing more ingenuity than beauty. We must own to being somewhat repelled by its artificial arrangement. The initial letters of a number of jewels are composed into the order of three names, and to each, some- times to an associated pair, a poem is allotted. These are often illustrated with striking fancies or stories gathered from the poet's copious Eastern lore ; but the whole wants some essential principle of unity, and its many beauties fail of their proper effect. The subject of "A Queen's Vengeance" is too hope- lessly remote from our Western thought to excite interest, not to speak of sympathy. But here Mr. Arnold is, we take it, trans- lating from an Indian original, and will be content if his readers acknowledge the historical value of this curious fragment of one of the epics of the world.

Of the shorter poems, one, "A Rajpilt Nurse," only misses by a little, we venture to say, being one of the finest ballads in the language. That little we are inclined to ascribe partly to a

certain want of chastening in Mr. .Arnold's taste, and to an im- patience of the labour of correction. The subject is at once simple and great,—the devotion of a nurse who sacrifices her

own child for the Royal infant whom she is suckling. All that

—BO Helena in Tram. By John Todhunter. Landon : Eagan Paul, Trench, was not needed to bring out the central fact of this devotion—

the description of the woman's beauty, for instance, and of the splendours of the Rajpoot dynasty—would have been better omitted. But when Mr. Arnold gets to the story itself, then, apart from his passion for interlarding his verse with unneces- sary Hindoo words, and from some weaknesses of expression, he tells it well:—

" Moti was proud and true, With the Prince of the land on her bosom, and her own brown baby too.

And the Rajpilt women will have it (I know not myself of these things) As the two babes lay on her lap there, her lord's, and the Toad& pore King's ; So loyal was the blood of her body, so fast the faith of her heart, It passed to her new-born infant, who took of her trust its part.

He would not suck of the breast-milk till the Prince had drunken his fill ; He would not sleep to the cradle.song till the Prince was lulled and still; And he lay at night with his small arms clasped round the Rana'a child, As if those hands like the rose-leaf could shelter from treason wild.

For treason was wild in the country, and villainous men had sought The life of the heir of the gadi,* to the Palace in secret brought ; With bribes to the base, and with knife-thrusts for the faithful, they made their way Through the line of the guards, and the gateways, to the hall where the women lay.

There MU, the foster-mother, sate singing the children to rest, Her baby at play on her crossed knees, and the King's son held to her breast ; And the dark slave-maidens round her beat low on the cymbal's skin Keeping the time of her soft song—when—Saheb !—there hurried in A breathless watcher, who whispered, with horror in eyes and face : "Oh ! ! men come to murder my Lord the Prince in this place ! They have bought the help of the gate-guards, or slaughtered them unawares, Hark ! that is the noise of their tulwars,f the clatter upon the stairs !"

'For one breath she caught her baby from her lap to her heart, and let The King's child sink from her nipple, with lips still clinging and wet, Then tore from the Prince his head-cloth, and the putta of pearls from his waist, And bound the belt on her infant, and the cap on his brows, in haste ; And laid her own dear offspring, her flesh and blood, on the floor. With the girdle of pearls around him, and the cap that the King's son wore ; While close to her heart, which was breaking, she folded the Raja's joy, And—even as the murderers lifted the purdah—she fled with his boy.

But there (so they deemed) in his jewels, lay the Chola Rana,$ the Heir ; "The cow with two calves has escaped us," cried one, "it is right and fair She should save her own butcha;§ no matter ! the edge of the dagger ends This spark of Lord Raghoba's sunlight ; stab thrice and four times 0 friends !"

And the Rajpat women will have it (I know not if this can be so) That Matra son in the putts and golden cap cooed low, When the sharp blades met in his small heart, with never one moan or wince, But died with a babe's light laughter, because he died for his Prince.

Thereby did that Rajpitt mother preserve the line of our Kings.' Oh ! I said, but they gave her mach gold and beautiful things, And garments, and land for her people, and a home in the Palace ! May be

She had grown to love that Princeling even more than the child on her knee.'

May is please the Presence !' (moth Vittoo, 'it seemeth not so ! they gave

The gold and the garments and jewels, as much as the proudest would have ;

But the same night deep in her true heart she buried a knife, and smiled,

Saying this : "I have saved my Rana! I must go to suckle my child !" ' "

Among the other poems, we may mention "The Snake and the Baby," " Atalanta " (a very happy dedication, so to speak, of the girls' magazine that bears that title), and "In Westminster

Abbey," as those that have specially pleased us.

* The " seat " or throne. f Indian swords. t "Little King." § "Little one."

Mr. Todhnnter's play is in some respects a successful imita- tion of the Greek drama. It is, indeed, that drama in its decadence, as it is handled by Euripides, not by ./Eschylas or Sophocles, that Mr. Todhunter makes his model ; but it must be allowed that he has caught something of its spirit. His Helen is the spiritualised conception of the famous heroine which approved itself to the philosophising tendencies of the last age of Greek poetry. The simple Homeric picture did not satisfy the taste of the Athens of Euripides. The erring wife, whose sin a loving husband condoned, and who ended her days as an universally respected matron, was changed into a being who never was really human, and who disappeared into some region beyond the praise or blame of men.

This conception is fully worked out throughout the play, and, indeed, constitutes its chief merit, as far as its thought is con- cerned, for the expression is sustained throughout at a high level of excellence. Hecuba and Paris fail to interest us, and CE none, who might have been made a most pathetic figure, is far too rhetorical; but Helen's utterances are always fine. Here is her characteristic consolation to Hecuba:—

"What more fits a man Than a rash life and happy, keen with bliss And anguish of achievement ; roaring seas O'ersailed, fair women won, strong sons begot, The blood and sweat of battle ; then to die, Where men with gods mingled in glorious strife Most terribly contend ? 0, thus to die, Heroes by heroes' hands splendidly slain, Ere she, the mumbling hag with fingers chill, Old Age, have clutched the heartstrings, is to take From Death's renowning hand the supreme cup Of war's red bacchanal ; and these, thy sons, Are happy in their deaths as in their lives !"

And here her final farewell to a world which has not known her

"Lying Fame, Hissing, with all her tongues at brazen war, Will slander me with base detracting spite, And baser praise ; but, like the moon serene Above the raging billows, I shall smile.

Lightnings of heaven, and you, ye eternal stars, Spirits of elemental air and fire Which keep your courses silently as the Fates, Ye winds of morn, and ethers of dim day, Assume me to yourselves, with you to reign !