Porrev.—The True Cross : a Legend of the Church. By

G. J. Whyte- Melville. (Chapman and Hall.) Mr. Whyte-Melville, after a successful career as a novelist, desires, it would seem, to win a reputation as a poet. Some short pieces of verse we have already, if our memory serves us, seen from his pen; The True Cross is a more ambitious effort, on which no inconsiderable amount of labour has been expended. We must say frankly that it does not seem to us a groat success. Mr. Whyte-Melville's attempt reminds us, in fact, of that which Lord Lytton made in the same direction. The author of " The Last Days of Pompeii " and "The Caxtons " believed that King Arthur" was his greatest work, and felt no disappointment so keenly as the refusal of the world to accept hisindgment. The True Cross is not equal to "King Arthur"; it does not show the same variety of power, nor the same mastery of versification ; is not, in short, so masterly, it may almost be said, so faultless an imitation of genuine poetry. Yet it is not unworthy of being ranked in the same class. We have in it a fluent and powerful rhetoric, graphic powers of descrip- tion, and an occasional stroke of pathos, though these two qualities are not so effective as we have often found them in the author's prose-writings. The "Legend" which he has chosen for his subject supplies a number of themes which are only too various and elevated. Adam, exiled from Paradise, carries with him a seed of the Tree of Life. This, being planted on his grave, grows into a stately tree, from which Noah hews the main beam of the Ark. The beam miraculously develops into another tree, which affords shelter to Abraham's tent, and from which the patriarch surveys the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. From this, again, a beam is hewn for the Temple of Solomon ; and this beam, thrown at the destruction of the first Temple into the pool of Siloam, furnishes the wood for the Cross. A poet who includes in one volume each subjects as the Fall, the Flood, the overthrow of the Cities of the • Plain, the gloryof Solomon, the destruction of theTemple by the Chaldmans, and the Crucifixion, is not wanting in ambition. One tarns somewhat curiously to see what it is that out of so vast a choice of materials se ems most suited to his hand. The result suggests a curious reminiscence of the author's novels. His pen has never been more successful than when it was describing the beauty and power of woman, and the "Legend of the Church" presents the same characteristics as such secular produc- tions as "The Lady and the Locusts." Of such a kind is the scene where Adza and Ithor, last survivors of the rebellious race which was swept away by the Flood, take their last farewell of each other, arousing in the poet a sympathy which he does not feel for the austere piety of Noah. And such, again, is the description of the Queen of Sheba, a lively and susceptible beauty, whom . the poet goes out of his way to describe. The reader will wish to 830 a specimen of Mr. Whyte- Melville's verse, and we shall select our quotation from "The Queen of the South." A "travelled merchant" has been describing the glory and wisdom of Solomon. When he comes to tell the story of the monarch's judgment between the two claimants for the child, she fairly loses her heart :— " As though his listener's very soul was stirred, She seemed to hang entranced on every word,— With parted lips, and dewy, dreamy eye., That veiled a deeper feeling than surprise. A. sense of woman's thraldom drawing near, A thrill too keen for joy, too sweet for fear, Dashed by a maiden shame unknown till now, That sent the life-blood up from heart to brow, That softened all the outline of her face, And crowned her beauty with its richest grace ; Till day by day that beauty lost its glow, The light, free step, unequal fell and slow, The dusky cheek grew wan, and almost pale, The weary, wistful glances told their tale. And every change that marked her altered mien Betrayed a wound, unstanched, because unseen. Wild were her dreams, and in her troubled rest, So heaved, no panted her unquiet breast, The busy palace-maidens, prone to pry, Declared each breath she drew a love-sick sigh, And vowed that as the fever-fit increased Their longing Queen looked always to the East."

We can only regret that the author puts us off with a very tame ending to this canto, instead of describing, as we expected, the loves of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Very likely h3 thought that the very small fragment of a heart which the wise King could hive had to spare for her was not worthy of so incomparable a beauty.—Lars : a Pastoral of Norway. By Bayard Taylor. (Strahan.) Lars is a tale told in idyllic verse, after the manner of Mr. Tennyson, by a disciple of whose ability the master hasno need to be ashamed. A dedication to

John G. Whittier, the poet of the American Friends, indicates the par- , pose of the poem, in which Mr. Bayard Taylor has skilfully combined his borne experiences of New-England life, and his knowledge of another country and people with which he has made himself almost equally familiar. Brits, a- beautiful Norwegian girl, has two suitors,. who are thus graphically described

:- "A herdsman, woodman, hunter, Lars was strong,

Yet silent from his life upon the hills.

Beneath dark lashes gleamed his darker eyes, Like mountain-tarns that take their changeless hue From shadows of the pine ; in all his ways He showed that quiet of the upper world A breath could turn to tempest, and the force Of rooted firs that slowly split the stone.

But Per was gay with laughter of the seas Which were his home; the billow-breaking blue On the Norwegian skerries flashed again Within his sunbright eyes; and in his tongue, Set to the louder, merrier key it learned

In bum of rigging, war of wind and tide,

The rhythm of ocean and its wilful change, Allured all hearts as ocean lures the land."

She cannot or will not choose between them. A quarrel springs up, which must be settled after the deadly Norwegian fashion, in which the foes, grappled together with steel hooks, fight their duel with the knife. Per, who has provoked the strife, is killed, and Lars flies across the ocean to the new lands of the West. The furies of blood pursue him till they are charmed away by the wisdom and love of the family of Friends with whom he takes service. Rath Mendenhall, the daughter of the house, is thus described :—

"Her still, sweet face, and pure, untroubled eyes, Spoke gentle blood. A browner dove she seemed, Without the shifting iris of the neck, And when she spake het voice was like a dove's, Soft, even-toned, and sinking in the heart."

The two are wedded, and after the death of the old man, her father, seek the Norwegian home of Lars, where, as the Spirit tells him, he has a work to do, a work of atonement for the guilt of blood. He offers. himself with unresisting courage to the revenge of Thorsten, next of kin to the dead Per; but Thorsten dare not strike the man of peace,—

" And the witness borne

By Lars, the voice of his un-prinkled blood, Became a warning on Norwegian hills."

There is good substance in this story of Lars. It would have read welt in prose ; yet we think, as we do not often think of such efforts, that it distinctly gains by the graceful verse in which Mr. Bayard Taylor has told it, verse which is marked out as genuine poetry, not so much by conspicuous beauties which suggest themselves for quotation, as by the uniform elevation, warmth, and richness of the style and thought. Here is the passage in which Brita's grandmother gives her an ancestral brooch :—

" So from a box that breathed of musky herbs, She took the boss of roughly-fashioned gold With garnets studded ; took, but gave not yet. Some pleasure in the smooth, cool touch of gold, Or wine-red sparkles, flickering over the stones, Or dream of other fingers, other lips

That kissed them for the bed they rocked upon, That happy summer eve in Hallingdal, Gave her slow heart its girlhood's pulse again, Her cheek one last leaf of its virgin rose."

And hero is the ending of the deadly fight between the rivals:--

"Some forward sprang, and loosed, and lifted them

A little; but the bead of Per hung back, With lips apart and dim blue eyes unshut,

And all the passion and the pain were gone ror ever. 'Dead I' a voice exclaimed; then she,

Like one who stands in darkness, till a blaze Of blinding lightning paints the whole broad world, Saw, burst her stony trance, and with a cry Of love, and grief, and horror, threw herself Upon his breast, and kissed his passive mouth, And loud lamented: Oh, too late, I know I loved thee best, my Per, my sweetheart Per!

Thy will was strong, thy ways were masterful; I did not guess that lora might so command!

Thou wort my ruler ; I resisted thee, But blindly: 0 come back!—I will obey.'"

—Eastern Legends and Stories in English Verse. By Lieutenant Norton Powlett, R.A. (H. S. King.) When Mr. Powlett is in a serious mood he tells his Eastern Legends with sufficient taste and skill ; when he imitates "Ingoldsby," he certainly does not please. There is humour, we are well aware, in these stories of the East, but it is not humour which is properly represented by such stanzas as the following, supposed to be spoken by the Devil when he is meditating revenge on the hermit, who seems likely to spoil his trade :— " So absinthe and gin, and all sorts of sweet sin. Are quite at a discount ; and rogues in a row In tetrWrance propessions make touching confessions, And the spout and the teapot incessantly flow.

"Good porter and swipes, and their long e'ay pipes, By the 'mobile vulgus are wholly eschewed ; This cranky old creature has done for the theatre, And even Aunt Sally, I'm told, is tabooed."

We suppose that this is what the author means when he says in his preface that ho "has thought it best to convert for the most part the Oriental forms of speech, which the characters in these legends would use, into, as far as may be, their English equivalents." It is a grave mistake. One of the great advantages of taking subjects from far-away places is that what is vulgar there is not vulgar here. It is intolerable to find "good porter and swipes" meeting us in the East.—Poems, By Sydney Whiting. (Triibuer). 4' Most of the following poems," the author tells us, " have passed through an ordeal." They have obtained so much favour as to have been accepted by the editors of periodicals, and we presume, to have been read, to a certain extent, by the public. With this judgment we are not disposed to quarrel The poems seem to us to have just reached this level; they are good enough to be printed, they are almost good enough to be read. Let us quote a stanza from " The Sibyl's Glass," " an attempt to sketch in a concentrated poetical form the supposed progress of Creation, as suggested by the

• details of the physical sciences " — "The Sibyl's glass shows earth a fire, Slow cooling down to scoriae rude; The while its raging flames retire To burn in central solitude.

But giant force, a rebel still, Amorphous manes flings on high; The whirlpool and tornado fill With terror ocean and the sky. Volcanoes belch beneath the sea, And mountains leap and first behold The sun in his sublimity, And seeing, find their summits gold! Then forth the mighty mandate sped, The germ of life abroad was spread."

There is a certain facility about this. but what a strange conception of poetry! —Amadeus, and other Poems. By Alfred Wyatt-Edg,e11. (Smith and Elder.) The principal poem in this volume is a threnody on the death of a young friend who was drowned in the river Welland. The subjett suggested and almost compelled an imitation of "Lycidas," and Mr. Wyatt-Edgell, possessing some literary skill and power of versifi- cation, and moved, moreover, it would seem, by strong feeling, has composed a very creditable exercise. Here is a stanza which shows some skill of construction :—

"0 all ye flowers, awake to grieve once more, And come, ye oleanders, from the shore Of bright Salerno! jealous guardians ye Of that dear shrine where sleeps triumphantly Redemption's first Evangelist: Auster and Zephyr there have kissed, And pour the splendour of their loveliness Upon your opening buds, and vie to bless With vernal benedictions all the lea. 'Tie then the 'latices, greenly-purpled sea Doth smooth his ripples, breathless to admire The crown ye form for overhanging hills : Descend, descend to join the silver pine ; Already, though untimely, thrills The dirge for Amadeus dead and gone : The music immaturely fills The pining valleys and the forests wan, Whose melancholy echoes waft the cadence on.'' We do not see anything in the volume which would indicate original power in the writer, but so far as he has gone, he has achieved a certain

success.—Gold and Tinsel, by Frances Anne Sayer (Provost), does not require a lengthy criticism. It is one of the volumes which we find are most easily and most satisfactorily disposed of by an extract. Here are two stanzas from " The Battle of Thermopylae ":— " And now the messenger departs—his stay had been but brief— To tell his lord, King Xerxes, how the proud Spartan chief Received his princely offer with anger and disdain, And vowed to die a noble death rather than hold the rein Over a stern, proud nation to which he had no right: Moreover. when receiving it, his nobleness would blight. Then said Xerxes, in-his fury, 'Before the sun goes down. The Spartan and his followers my victory shall crown.—