A Circle of Song ; or, Lays of Love and

Laughter. (J. Palmer, Cam- bridge.)—The author has collected here the verses which it has amused him to write during the course of years, which have now reached, as we gather from one or two dates given in the course of the volume, a not inconsiderable number. It might have been better if he had left them in the obscurity of his writing-desk. His " love " is not always very refined, and his " laughter " sometimes is a little wanting in reverence, and nearly always in genuine mirth. Vers de socidtd such as our author aspires to write must be always perfect in form. We may pardon much to a poet who is seeking to express laboriously some profound thought or lofty imagination; but a jest, a fancy, must ask for no indulgence. Of all things in the world, a clumsy jester is the greatest mistake. By far the best thing in the volume is " Mon Château en Espagne," though even this wants finish. Here are two stanzas :—

" For my wife never scolds, and her friends are all laic;

No tattlers, gossips, or humps; The babes good as gold, never spoken to twice, Free from whooping-cough, measles, and mumps.

My stables hold bunters of temper and dash,

My cellars Moselle and Champagne, The housemaids are models, the cats never smash The best vase in my castle in Spain.

." When I take down my drag to the races close by, The favourite wins every day,

And more wonderful still, it is bard to say why, The ring-men are certain to pay.

When to finish the eve a small gamble begins, For luck we are still in the vein, Having found out a game at which every one wins Only played at my castle in Spain."

—Lote and Music. By Percy Reeve. (David Bogne.)—Mr. Reeve can write some pretty verses. The poem with which he begins his volume, " Ghismond and Guiscard " (adapted from Boccaccio), is a very creditably executed composition, after the manner of Leigh Hunt. We cannot say that the style is that which we most admire. It is somewhat " namby-pamby," and wants manliness and vigour. The young gentleman who,-

" Had learned some ballads with a strange, sad tune,

That he would sing as do in plenilnne The nightingales their songs of agony, So smoothly as to sweeten misery,"

and the king's fair daughter who loves him, "though little more than servant to the king," are creatures of the sickly-sentimental sort, who do not really interest us. Still, their story, such as it is, is told with some grace and play of fancy. (We hope, by the way, that Dr. Murray will not forget " plenilune" for his "New English Dictionary.") Some of the other poems, too, are of at least fair quality. " Pro- vision," for instance, wherein the cause of " love in a hut" is prettily pleaded. We are all the more sorry that Mr. Reeve shows now and

then the cloven hoof of the " Fleshly School." He goes now and then into wild rhapsodies about the beauty of women, and when this mood is on him forgets, we are constrained to say, both purity and reverence. In the " Ballad of Ada," there occurs in the first stanza a simile which is far too shockingly profane for us to quote. Else- where, we have such rubbish as :- " Whose little, biting teeth Are God's mercies beneath The rose-red lips," &c.

But this, we take it, is Mr. Reeve's first volume, and his case is not hopeless. This is, we hope, but "some heat of youthful blood," on which he will look, when his years are somewhat increased, with shame.—Ella Cuthullin, and other Poems, Old and New, by Greville J. Chester. (Marcus Ward and Co.)—The principal poem in this volume is in every way a dreary performance. The story is dismal, it would not be too much to say hideous ; and the verse in which it is told of the feeblest kind. Mr. Chester is one of the multitude of writers who fancy that blank verse is easy, because it escapes the one difficulty of rhyme, and are not aware that the art of duly varied pauses, to speak of one thing only, is far more difficult of attainment than any finding of apt rhymes can be. What could be weaker than such verse as this ? :—

" Also on Ivan did a new life dawn, For Ella would recount old Kelt° lays And Scandinavian legends, which to him Were yet a book unsealed, so long had he Been absent from the North ; for, when a boy, He, with his sire, had left bleak Scotia's shores, To seek a home with Scotia's rightful Rine, Who, driven from his kingdom, found at length A resting-place within an exile's grave."

Mr. Chester, it is true, is not happier in rhyme, witness the follow- ing " I've sat 'math ancient olives near the 'tissue, And watch'd the Olympian columns touched with flame, And wandered through the vineyard of Cephissus, Colonus' grove,—a shrine that knows no shame."

What can be the meaning of "a shrine that knows no shame "? It is scarcely happy, too, though it is probably novel, to rhyme "classic Isis " with " academia paradises."—The City of Success, and other Poems. By Henry Abbey. (C. Appleton and Co., New York.)— " The City of Snccess," and "The City of Decay," which follows it later on in the volume, are allegories, not very happily conceived or skilfully executed. Still, there are happy passages in them. Here, for instance, is a graceful fancy, expressed with some force:—

"Naked were the infant moments, But with fruit-tree blossoms belted, Which were ever snowing petals And bestrewing all the ground. Then came lissome older children, By the flying blossoms pelted,— Graceful Hours, and twelve were rosy ; Twelve were Tailed and starry crowned.

" Then the Days came, budding maidens : They had hair of morning brightness, And about with night were skirted ; Some days dark and others fair.

At their heels the Months close followed ; In their steps was less of lightness ; On her arm a shield of silver Each Month lifted in the air."

But what of the metre ? Surely there is but a scant allowance of rhymes, and these too widely separated to have their effect. " The Ballad of Consolation" is of a less ambitions kind, and is more suc- cessful. The same may be said of the Indian story, " Liberty."— Abel : a Tragedy. By Francis Henry Cliffe. (Remington.)—Mr. Cliffe thinks that " dramas founded on Biblical events ought always to have a large admixture of lyric poetry," and that Alfieri and Byron have failed in dealing with the subject which be has attempted, because they neglected this canon. Accordingly, he gives us some dialogues, some soliloquies, and a very large proportion of choral odes, duly divided into strophes, anti- strophes, and epodes. But he has certainly forgotten one thing. If we are to have a tragedy, we must have something dramatic, and this is wholly lacking. The fact is that, as might be expected, the theme is far beyond the author's power. He fails in the first requisite of dignity. "Satan and the Demons Dance" is a stage direction which is really too absurd. Fancy the Satan of Milton dancing ! " Enter Satan, in a fiery chariot, drawn by two black horses, that emit fire from their mouths and nostrils," is not much better.