19 AUGUST 1865, Page 23

The Story of Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot of the

Lake. After the German of Wilhelm Hertz, with other Poems. By Charles Brace.

(Longman.)—The "other poems" are described by the author as "Splinters from the Lever of Love, with which he hopes some time to

move the world." The first story is a long matter in that metre of fatal facility, the octosyllabic, that our fathers loved. We must frankly confess that it has been too mach for our patience. Having found nothing striking in thought or expression at the end of several pages,

and being tolerably familiar with the doings of Queen Guinevere, we

passed on to the "Splinters of Love." Here we were agreeably sur- prised. There is certainly some power and melody in the poems entitled "Effie" and "Good Night." At the same time we must pro-

test against such rhymes as "lies a" and "wiser," "form" and "worn," " blossom " and "bosom," and the liberties taken with the metres. Nor

do we think the "Archangel's sword" a proper sort of weapon with which to threaten a young lady who has changed her mind in a love affair. However, as an "earnest of better things," which is the author's own. idea of his volume, we may accept it.