CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Silver Store. By S. Baring-Gould. (Longmans.)—Mr. Baring- Gould gives us here in a metrical form certain legends and anecdotes gathered from mediaeval and rabbinical sources. We cannot perceive that he possesses in any high degree the poetical faculty, but he writes like a scholar, and his versification is generally easy, and sometimes not without grace. He might, with advantage, have been less sparing of the labour of correction. We observe on one page two such faulty rhymes as " court " and " thought," " wealth " and " Guelf ;" and some of his best pieces are disfigured by faulty lines and prosaic stanzas. The prettiest poem in the volume is, perhaps, the tale of " The Rabbi's Daughter;" the most profound thought we find in " Doctor Faustus.' Faustus, curious to see his place of doom, is carried to the nether world, and catches on his journey a glimpse of heaven. It is this only that, returned to earth, he can recall :— " Ile said, ' Remembered only what is lost; Seen for one instant the celestial shore, I can remember nothing more— That I recall; all else is quite forgot.' " Very interesting, too, are the poems that exhibit that characteristic phase of mediaeval thought, the sympathy with the lower forms of animal life. Of this kind wo have " The Swallows of Citeaux," and, better still, "Bishop Benno and the Frogs." The Bishop, anxious to recite his " Benedieite, omnia opera," in peace, is disturbed by the croaking of the frogs, and bids them be silent. He comes to the words,— '-All ye seas and floods that roll,
Praise the Lord, from pole to pole, And for ever magnify.
All ye teeming things that dwell In the waters, praise as well, And for ever magnify ;"
then his conscience smites
Taming to the swamp, hePried: ' Sitters by the water side,
Do not ye your hymns forego. I release you from the ban, Praise the God of frog and man—
Cantata fratres Domino:"
The humorous poems are very poor ; the scurvy jests against matrimony it would have been better to have omitted than to have apologized for.
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