The Jew. A Poem. By Frederick Corny. (Bell and Daldy.)—Our
old friend the Wandering Jew, after the Crucifixion, is carried off to Hell, where he hears the report to Satan by his emissary of that event, Satan's triumphant speech thereupon, the advent of Christ to Hell, and release of the devils. He awakes from this vision, meets a man with whom he has a long philosophical conversation, marries a lady named Miriam, with whom he enjoys great happiness till her death. Then his misery is extreme ; but, after countless years, finding that he cannot die, he takes his knife and commits suicide. Notwithstanding this ex- traordinary framework, or absence of framework, Mr. Cerny is, never- theless, not merely absurd. Take each chapter separately, and the scene is well conceived and worked out, while his diction is nervous, manly, and free from the violent straining after pictorial effect which is the prevailing fault of the day.
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