11 JANUARY 1868, Page 21

Songs and Ballads. By John James Lonsdale. With a brief

memoir. (Routledge.) Oswald of Deira. A Drama. By Georgians, Lady Chatter- ton. (Longmans.) Themes and Translations. By John W. Montclair. (New York.)—Two or three of the short poems in the first of these volumes deserve a passing word of praise. "The Children's Kingdom" is really touching and pretty, though there are two lines in it which need elucidating. "Cerra Linn" and "A Midsummer Shadow" are the other pieces which we had marked, but their merits are less con- spicuous, and the rest of the book need hardly be noticed. The p:cture of the band of children, however, setting out in the morning bright and happy, lingering in the forest at noon, and creeping to their journey's end at midnight with tearful eyes, has a decided charm. In the third book on our list we may mention the "Song of the Northman" as some- what picturesque. Of Lady Chatterton's drama we cannot speak with any comfort, for it is impossible to know what to say about it. And we did not read it with much comfort, either.