BOOKS.

A BUNDLE OF BALLADS" Essex was fretting in Cadiz Bay With the galleons fair in sight ; Howard at last must give him his way, And the word was passed to fight. Never was schoolboy gayer than he, Since holidays first began : He tossed his bonnet to wind and sea, And under the guns he ran.

Drake nor devil nor Spaniard feared, Their cities he put to the sack ; He singed His Catholic Majesty's beard, And harried his ships to wrack. He was playing at Plymouth a rubber of howls When the great Armada cam'; But he said, They must wait their turn, good souls,' And he stooped and finished the gaino.

Fifteen sail were the Dutchmen bold, Duncan be had but two But he anchored them fait where the Tezel And his colours aloft he flew.

I've taken the depth to a fathom,' he cried, 'And I'll sink with a right good will : For I know when we're all of us under the tide My flag will be fluttering still.'

Splinters were flying above, below, When Nelson sailed the Sound: Mark you, I wouldn't be elsewhere now,'

Said he, 'for a thousand pound!'

The Admiral's signal bade him fly, But he wickedly wagged his head : He clapped the glass to his sightless eye, And .'I'm damned if I see it !' he said."

THERE is no surer sign of a tendency towards ossification in literature than the inability of the poets to produce a good ballad. When ballads and songs give place to sonnets and elegies we may be sure that poetry has little hold upon man- kind at large, and has entered upon the academic stage,—has left the street, the hillside, or the ship's del* for the close dull atmosphere of the study. Of course poetry is not all ballads ; and sonnets, elegies, and other forme of reflective poetry will always flourish side by side with the ballads and songs in a great and living literature. Still, the fact remains that the tree of literature is showing signs of degeneration when it cannot put forth these green shoots. Fortunately our literature can, and does, still produce true ballads and songs. They are rare, no doubt, and are too often lacking in spontaneity; but for all that, the art of appealing to men and women who are not students and bookworms has not wholly died out. Still, to the band of modern ballad-writers a new recruit is always most welcome. It is therefore with the greatest possible pleasure that we notice the delightful little collection of ballads which Mr. Newbolt publishes under the title of Admirals All. Mr. Newbolt has done a notable thing. He has managed to write ballads fall of ring and go, and full also of patriotic feeling, without imitating Mr. Rudyard Those who have made any study of the later developments of our patriotic poetry will know how considerable is this achieve- ment. So great is Mr. Kipling's force, so strong the fascination he wields, and so catching his manner, that it is extremely diffi- cult for most writers to touch the themes specially associated with his name without falling into the hateful error of imita- tion, and giving us, instead of what Ben Jenson called "the lusty wine" of verse, Barrack-room Ballads and water. Mr. Newbolt knows how to be a patriotic poet without forgetting that a poet, to be worth anything, must be individual, must be himself, not an echo, however melodious. Hence we read his verse with the real delight and without being haunted by another voice. "Admirals All" is practically Mr. Steven- son's charming essay on "The Old Admirals" put into ballad form.—A poet may get inspiration in ideas without imitating ; for was not Shakespeare the prince of borrowers P—But Mr. rewbolt has improved on the essay, and given us a poem which could be sung by sailors all the world over. As a matter of fact; the style is very artful and very sound, but the plain man will fancy he likes it 'because there is no humbugging literary rot in it.' Take the following verses. What can we want better to sing on land or sea? They will doubtless before long sing "Admirals All" up the Nile, and while they are waiting for the word to storm Khartoum will stamp feet and rattle glasses to the sound of— A. G. B. • Admirals AU, and other VITS81. By Henry Howbeit. London- Elkin Mathews.

It is really not fair to quote practically the whole of Mr. Newbolt's ballad, but he gives one no option. What is a reviewer to do ? He could not leave out Drake and the bowls, he must put in his favourite story about Duncan, and, of course, Nelson and the thousand pounds and the telescope had got to go in. However, we do Mr. Newbolt no wrong, for the rest of the poems which we cannot quote in full are quite as good, and will not be missed by any lover of the poetry that stirs the blood. "San Stefano : a Ballad of the Bold 'Menelaus," is a capital sea piece. We will only quote the chorus, however. It is an excellent sign-post to the poem :—*".„

" She'd a right fighting company, three hundred men and more, Nine and forty guns in tackle running free;

And they cheered her from the shore for her colours at the fore, When the bold 'Menelaus' put to sea."

"Nine and forty guns in tackle running free" has a capital lilt. "Drake's Drum" is a dialect poem. As our readers know, we are strong supporters of dialect poetry, but we

doubt the wisdom of a dialect ballad. It makes the poem dramatic in feeling. But the ballad-writer does not want to give a dramatic impression; he wants to smite our hearts direct with the lyric arrow, not to put us into a mood. Thus, though charming from the literary point of view as is "Drake's Drum," we hold that it should have been written in the universal, not the local, key. Here is a verse of the poem, and a very excellent verse it is :—

" Drake he was a Devon man, an' rifled the Devon seas,

(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below ?), Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease, An' dreammg arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.

Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore, Strike et when your powder's runnin' low ; If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven, An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago."

But after all, it is little more than a matter of spelling to put the poem into the English of us all.

Of the poems that are rather songs than ballads in Mr.

Newbolt's tiny volume we must mention one which he en- titles "Vital Lampada." It is on the old playing-fields of Eton theme, and very cleverly has Mr. Newbolt handled his subject. We quote two verses, our readers will read the third, and not the least good, for themselves :—

"There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night-

Ten to make and the match to win—

A bumping pitch and a blinding light, An hour to play and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, But his Captain's band on his shoulder smote 'Play up ! play up / and play the game ! '

The sand of the desert is sodden red,—

Red with the wreck of a square that broke ;— The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. The river of death has brimmed his banks, And England's far, and Honour a name, But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks, Play up ! play up ! and play the game

We must leave Mr. Newbolt's verse without a word about "The Guides at Cabul," "The Dictionary of National Bio- graphy," or " Laudabunt Alii," but before we bid him "An revoir " we will venture to suggest a theme for his muse. The mutiny at Vellore and Gillespie's heroic action would furnish him with just the subject for a ballad. There was a reckless daring about Gillespie's exploit which exactly suits this form of verse, where, if possible, the interest should centre in a single man or a single ship. The ballad wants a flesh- and-blood hero, and not an aspiration, however noble and

stirring. Another excellent ballad could be made out of the storming of Seringapatam. Baird stood up in the breach and waved the storming-party on to take the city in which for so many years he had been a prisoner. There was something Homeric in this incident. Something far

better than Homeric, something English, in that which followed. It was Baird who was entrusted with the duty of protecting from injury and pillage the city in which he had been scorned and tortured. He who might have cried for vengeance saw to it that no vengeance was taken.