31 MAY 1873, Page 25

Urban Grand/sr, and other Poems. By Louis Brand. (Chapman and

Hall.)—The chief poem in the volume is 21 melancholy and painful tale, not redeemed by any particular power or grace in the telling. Nor can we ace anything above mediocrity in the other poems. What could be better proof of incapacity than that a writer who presumably has seen Lord Derby and Mr. Gladstone's version of "Donee gratus cram tibi," should yet venture on a translation, the first stanza of which runs thus ?—

" While I was dear to thee, And while thy white arms thou didst never Ring About the neck of scene more favoured youth, Then lived I happier than a Persian king."