CURRENT LITERATURE.

POETRY.—A Garland from Greece. By George Francis Armstrong, M.A. (Longman.)—Mr. Armstrong maintains, and even improves, his position among the English poets of the day. This volume pre- sante subjects taken both from ancient and from modern Greece. Of the first, we may say that no writer of the time, except Mr. Matthew Arnold—and, if we are to take his " Transcripts " into account, of course, Mr. Browning—has so thoroughly imbibed the genuine Cies- Steal feeling. "The Satyr" is a fine presentation of the Greek idea of a joyous animal existence, untroubled by the developments of moral being, a,—

Blithe creature in whose being meet and mingle Man's motions with the life of dumb dull things Of Held and thicket, and the spirit's wings Half-fledged begin to pulsate and to tingle With faint forefeolings of potential nights. Dream of Sin's sonar° makes him not afraid ; No curb of Conseienoe on his heart is laid To cheek his quickening senses' soft delights: He roams the woods in measureless content, Quailing earth's mystic boons in plefusod bewilderment."

The legend of " Selemnos " is, perhaps, less genuinely classical. We do not know to what province of Hellenic mythology to assign the Nymph whom Selemnos loves, who loves him in return, and who loaves him in despair and abhorrence, when contact with the world has soiled the purity and nobleness of his character. She could not certainly have been one of the faciles Nymphcc of classical fable. "The Death of Epicurus" is a philosophical poem of considerable merit, an exoellent exposition in vigorous language, which is poetical, without being ornate (the besotting fault of those who profess to imitate olassioal models) of the doctrine of the "Old Man of the Garden." Nicanor tells the story of the master's death to " Euryphon from Syracuse and Glycon from the East," as Phaedo told the narra- tive of the last hours of Socrates to Echecrates. Here is the passage in which the dying philosopher expounds his dootrine about the

Gods —

" Dream ye as seldom of the listless Gods As they of you. So shall ye rid your beads

Of fears and measureless disqniet. They

Heed not your tears or scorn, neglect or praise.

Par off they dwell, beyond the utmost trail Of wandering star, and in the cold white heaven Enjoy their changeless peace. No sacrifice Of ram or goat they claim of you, no shrine,

No offering, no worship. If the gods Were moved with any feeling of your woos, Their joy were maimed contemplating your pain ; And if indeed their hands were on the helm, Guiding the world, would not ye sail the seas Unhurt, not dash upon the finlike's roofs In ceaseless shipwreck P Nay, if gods there be, Either in power they fail or governance, Or in coutoutment and oblivious peace Let the fool world go drift lig where it may. Think not of them, except to emulate Their calm, and in like qniet be as gods."

"The Closing of the Oracle" is another fine poem. Of those that relate to modern Greece, "The Chiote," a grim story of the massacre of Sam, told in octosyllabie verse of more than average vigour, is, perhaps, the best. The old and the new are brought together in a way that is, perhaps, ingenious rather than imaginative, when Lysicrates, one of the "Three Hundred" who perished at Chaeronea, has his prayer,

" Bring me to Athens, 0 ye Gods I and lay, When dead, my bones amid her stainless dead,"

answered in an unexpected way, by having his skeleton removed to Athens by those who explored the site of the Chaeronoan lion. Lysierates would probably have preferred to remain where he was. We shall conclude with a passage which shows no small skill in word- painting :—

a' How bright wore the bays with their burthon of skiffs,

With rowers Is sashes of scarlet upstanding, And little white sails darting onward in whiffs Of the breeze from Albania 1 Hew gay at the landing The crowds of the gazers in fez and en,pote, Eustinellas and slippers.—the white Epirbto, And the Greek swaying down with ineffable swagger, Ionian and Turk and red Moutonegriu, Pierce-eyed, and alert, with a hand on the dagger Or pistol that peeped from the girdle half-seen 1 0, the scenes as we passed up the markets and lanes, Amid trays of bright oranges ruddy and golden, And strawberries cooled by the light summer rains ; Amid groups of grave islanders wrinkled and olden, And strings of meek mules heavy-laden with fruits

In panniers a.swinging, and sailors in hoots

And red caps of Naples, and priests with long tresses Twined beak in their hats; amid booths with brown bread,

And stalls with ripe cheese or Cheeks prints from Greek presses—

Till out through the gates to the mountains we sped I"

—English Work and Song amid the Forests of the South. By Au Englishman. (Sampson Low and Co.)—Theso poems are interesting, as work done in the Australian Bush. We cannot pretend that a drama like " John Hampden," however just the sentiments and correct the expression, is to us an interesting form of literature. It is not always or altogether that even Shakespeare succeeds in the historical drama, and those that follow him in this difficult path are, to say the least, very venturesome. "The Sabine Wedding" is a comedy, aiming to give something of a picture of the domestic life of Rome. One of the chief characters is our old friend Horace, who is intro- duced singing some of his odes, which "An Englishman" has trans- lated or paraphrased with commendable ingenuity. Here are the last three stanzas of one which has been essayed before times without number. If "An Thiglishman's" version is not the best that we have seen, it yet stands fairly well in the competition :— " The claw* of to-morrow, why try to forecast it? The day thy luck sends thee embrace and enjoy :

Make the most of thy youth, ore morose age shall blast it, Disdain not loves, pleasures, and diocese, my boy.

At the tryst may eve find thee, thy glrl at thy side, And breathing love's promises sweet in her oar ; Or she in her playfulness leaves thee to hide, And the glad laugh which thrills, thee tolls when thou art near.

In the corner she's hiding, now seize her and kiss, Her strife is put on to make yielding the sweeter : Get the ring from her finger, all clenched as it is, 'Tie bat to pretend only force could defeat her."

"Sir Richard Grenville's Last Sea Fight" risks boldly a comparison out of which it comes as well as could be expected. "An English- man" can hardly hope to realise much profit, or even fame, from his attempt ; but he certainly must have gratified the satisfaction that is to be found in giving a constant expression to manly and elevated thought.—Poems and Lyrics for Idle Hours, By Charlotte Price. (F. V. White and Co.)—For whose "idle hours" P we are inclined to ask, WS we read this volume. Scarcely the reader's, we should say, for verse of this kind, never rising into eloquence, and but rarely touched with any spark of beauty, is very hard reading indeed. What is to be said of some five or six thousand verses of this type, not good enough to admire, and not bad enough to laugh at,—what, but that, whatever they may be, they are not readable P- " The happy birds released from hunger's pangs, No more entreat man's aid with timid eye, But pour their liquid strains into his ears, And soar in pairs beneath a genial sky.

Soft nests they build, with patient, wondrous skill, And tend with f care their youthful brood, No longer homeless 'and forlorn they roam, But only skim tho air for joy and food."

One thing, however, may be said. It is doubtless a more suitable exercise for idle hours (for the poet's most be certainly meant), to write such stanzas with single instead of double rhymes, but the canons of art forbid it. The only stanza where the single rhyme is permitted is that where eight and six-syllabled verse alternates, and this because the two lines may be read as one. Surely, Miss Price ought to have made herself acquainted with so simple a rule as this,. before she published.—The Coming of the Princess, and other Poems. By Kate Seymour Maclean. (Hunter, Rose, and Co., Toronto)— This volume would deserve a kindly welcome, in any case; as one of the earliest utterances of the Canadian Muse, it calls for a more special notice. The verse is considerably above the level of the minor poetry of tho day. It is not unlike the worka of Mrs. Homans,. wanting something, perhaps, of that writer's ease and polish, but with something of the same richness of expression. Here are some verses which, but for the metre, which recalls a more recent model, Mrs. Heraans might well have written : —

"Above the roofs and ohimney-tops, And through the slow November rain, A light from some fox attic pane, Shines twinkling through the water-drops.

Borne lonely watcher waits and weeps, Like me, the stop that comes not yet ;— Her watch for weary hours is set, While far below the city sloops.

The level lampreys lay the floors, And bridge the dark that lies below, O'er which my kudos come and go, And peep, and listen at the doors ; And bring me word how sweet and plain, And quaint, the lonely attic room, Where she sits singing in the gloom, Words sadder than the autumn rain :— 'A thousand times by sea and shore, In my wild dreams I see him lie, With face upturned towards the sky, Murdered, and stiffening in his gore :— Or drowned, and floating with the tide, Within some lonely midnight bay,— His arms stretched toward me where he lay. And blue eyes staring, fixed and wide.

Oh, winds that rove o'er land and sea!

Oh, waves that lap the yellow sands Oh, hide your stealthy, treacherous hands, And °all no more his Druno to me.'"

Of local colour there is not much, for most of the verses boar no trace of their birthplace. But this is very commonly the case in the first literary growths of a new country, whioh are more often than not skilful imitations of old models. If Mrs, Maclean will take courage, and give us something native to the soil (not quasi-Pindaric odes to Royal Princesses, which no one cares to read), she may achieve considerable rank among poets, for she certainly has in good measure the gifts of thought, form, and expression.—Poems, by Mrs. C. B. Langston (F. V. 'White and Co.)—Here is a volume of respectable verse, which is at its best when its aims are most modest." The familiar letters, "Acknowledgments of a drawing sent," "Character of a horse," and the like, are fairly good ; we might almost say that Hannah More might have written them. The sentimental and religious verse is Just like what thousands of educated people write, but, happily, do not commonly publish. — Amaranth and Asphodel. Songs front the Greek Anthology. By Alfred J. Butler, M.A. (Began Paul, Trench, and Co.)—Not a little scholarship, taste, and poetical power have been expended in rendering some of the beauties of the Greek anthology into English, and this, the latest contribution, may fairly rank with the best. After a preface which might with advantage have been longer, so well expressed and so much to the point is it, Mr. Butler divides his translations into four parts, according to their Babied, the four being severally entitled "Songs of the Love of Women," "Songs of the Love of Nature," "Songs of Death," and "Songs of Hereafter." Here is a specimen of one from the second, showing the Greek genius in one of its less familiar aspects :— "THE POET IN SPRING. Now stormy winter from the world is gone ;

The purple hours of blossom-laden spring Smile, and dim earth with herb is crowned upon, And budding boughs abroad their tresses fling. Pair meadows where the rese-bud opens ripe, Laugh, drinking tender dew of kindly dawn ; The shepherd on the mountains shrills his pipe, Rejoieing as he tends on kid or fawn ;

And o'er the wide waves mariners faro with sails Well spread and hollowed well by undespiteful gales.

Now to the eluster.laden god of wine Glad elamoare rise from swains upon whose looks Mich blooms of many-berried ivy twine ; Now bees—whose birth is from the mouldering ox, :So saith the legend—'neath their straw-built domes Ply cunning handiwork, and shape amain 'Their waxen glory of fresh-molten comb ;

New al the bird-olans lift a elear-voieed strain. At sea the halcyon, swallows round the eaves,

'Swans by the brookside, nightingales amid the loaves.

So, when the boughs rejoice, and earth is bright With blossoms ; when the shepherd for delight Pipe, and the Hooks make merry all day long : 'When sails are spreading, when the wine-god's song Bounds for the dance ; when every winged thing Makes musk:, and the bees in travail cline,— How should is singer sing not sweetly in the Spring I"