Riguet of the Tuft, a Love Drama. (Macmillan.)—A very graceful

little poem, in which a familiar story, with the moral that love makes beautiful that to which it is given, is told in melodious verso ; some- times, indeed, wanting in simplicity, but never common-place or dull. We are reminded as we road of Alexander Smith, often reminded of his beauties, sometimee of his affectations. Prince Riquet has it in an unshapely form ; the Princess Callista has beauty, but with it is dull and without soul. The Prince, who has dreamt of her as the hope of his life, gives her, as it is in his power to do, the gift of his intelligence, but fails to win back from her the return of the love which is to deliver him from the haunting burden of an unlovely form.

Lensed, the merry poet, who worships his art, but scoffs at love, until he finds his fate ; a boisterous hunting King, and the tender, loving Queen, who is somewhat unequally yoked to him; and the fair godmother Gentilia, who unwinds at last the tangled skein of the Prince's love, are the other personages of the story, which is pleas. ingly diversified with its alternations of grave and gay. Here is a specimen of Mr. Stopford Brooke's painting of scenery (for it is an open secret that the accomplished author of "Prince Riquet " is no other then ho)

" I stood uncertain when a water-glint Fleshing among the pine-etems led me on, And a few paces brought Inc to a mere— A long, dank water, silver in the sun,

Fringed with tall roods; and round it closed the pines, Like columned ends watching a quiet sea. The wave was still, and in its lilted sheet

The silent darkness of the domill woods

Glimmered a clear pale green, while the blue sky Shone in mid-depth, flecked with white clouds Whose edge The feet of morning crimsoned. Flocks of birds Rose from the roods, and dying to and fro,

Hunted their prey, and all the lonely pool

Rang with their crying."

A.nd here is Isis picture of Callista :— " Her eyes were music, mid her chancing olleek Shamed the wild ruse in Tune, and all the winds Gave It, enthralled with love, their kiss; her mouth, Curved like the bo'w of Oberon, aped within On a gate of fairy pearl ; her eloquent lips, Ruddy and sweet is apples in October, Invited taste, though none might dare to tic; From her low brow and stately head her hair Plowed in a ripple, paused at her ear, then full A glorious, golden torrent to her feet, And on her throat and voilitd bosom glowud A Bunshigo which they seemed themselves to make."

Hero is a fine lump 1— "Hope, over all, a dove against the storm, Unwearied seeks its keine:"

But here we have Alexander Smith, not in his best style :—

"Slow climbs, White as a ghost, o'er cloudy stairs, the moon, Drowning the stars in light ; as slowly climbs Sorrow's cold moon within my heart, and pours Pain on my life."

As the scene is laid in fairy-land, we must not be too severe on Lanval's description ot

"the cavern-well,

O'er whose cool shaft it pleasured me to lean,

And see my flute a hundred feet below In the dark winter-glass."

On earth, one could not see much at a hundred feet.