SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not bees reserved for review in other forms.] Poems from Victor Hugo. By Sir George Young. (Macmillan. and Co. 6s. 6d. net.)—Sir George Young, after breaking a lance in the cause of verse translation, proceeds to give us some excellent examples of work of this kind. He has taken. some liberties with his original, especially in the way of omission and paraphrasing. For this we have no blame. Victor Hugo. is sometimes intractable; but it would be a pity to deny us. the pleasure of reading in English the many things that lend. themselves to the change because there is a portion which it. isbetter to leave alone. We like as well as anything in the volume some of the poems from "Les Contemplations." "Lim)," "Rose," and "Talk at Dusk—III., Stargazing" are specially, pleasing. They are poems of early love, or what might have. been love. The reader may profitably compare them with the "Eleanore," dr.c., of Tennyson, remembering, of course, that. Tennyson's were "Juvenilia," while Victor Hugo was at the, height of his powers,—he was born in 1802, and "Lea Con- templations" were published in 1856. Here is a specimen„ showing the mature hand :- "My aty breath came quick ; our hearts within us fluttered;
The flowers of evening opened their wide eyes.
0 rocks, what have you none with all our sighs? What have you done, trees, with the words we uttered ? Truly our fortunes lie in evil ways, When such a day must pass, like other days !
0 memory, thou dark-accruing treasure, Sombre horizon lit with fancies past,
Dear after-glow of things too bright to last, Rose-radiance in eclipse of parted pleasure, Dow as through arches of a temple-gate Doth the mind's eye thy visions contemplate I"
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