25 DECEMBER 1869, Page 22

Stormbeaten. By Robert Buchanan and Charles Gibbon. (Ward, Lock, and

Tyler.)—This little book contains some very good and effective, and some very poor and melodramatic Christmas stories, and two or three spirited pieces of verse;—we conclude, by Mr. Buchanan,—which, though they will not for a moment compare with his true poems, are very far indeed above the ordinary verse of Christmas annuals. "Reuben Gray, or the sickly gentleman's story," is one of the beat of these pieces of verse ; and the " Gold-digger's Story " also contains some very spirited descriptive verse. Still, neither of them is at all of the class of poems by which Mr. Buchanan has gained, and we trust will keep, his high character as a poet. The comic prose stories are, we think, the worst. "A Parisian Mystery " is one of the best.