Michael Angelo ; a Dramatic Poem. By Henry Wadsworth Long-
fellow. (Roatledge and Son.)—" Michael Angelo" was written by Mr. Longfellow about ten years before his death, and published in the Century magazine. We have spoken of it before, and need only repeat on this occasion that, with all its merits— and it certainly contains fine passages—it is dramatic only in form. In the edition before us it appears with every ad- vantage. The paper and typography are of an edition de lure, though we must own to a preference for the dead-white, unglazed kind of the former over that which the publishers have given. The illustrations are thirty in number, and include the work of many artists and engravers of repute. Among the figure scenes we may mention "Cardinal Hippolito and Fra Sebastiano del Piombo," by T. do Tburlstruf ; "Michael Angelo and Tomaso de Cavalieri in the Coliseum," by F. D. Millet ; and "Michael Angelo and the Monk," by the same artist. Among the landscapes, a very effective little drawing of "Venice," by Theodore Wendell, and another, of "Vesuvius," by Ross Turner, in a different style, but also good. We should mention also a number of portraits, among them "Titian," "Benvennto Cellini," " Sebastian° del Piombo," and " Vasari."
There is some power of expression, and a good deal of metrical skill, in The Forging of the Anchor. By Sir Samuel Ferguson, LL.D. (Cassell and Co.) Hero a specimen of his verse :— "0 broad-armed Fisher of the Deep, whose sports can equal thine ?
The 'Dolphin weighs a thousand tons that tugs thy cable line ;
And night by night, 'tis thy delight, thy glory day by day.
Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play.
But, shamer of oar little sports! forgive the name I gave,— A fisher's joy is to destroy, thine aloe is to save !
0 lodger in the Sea-King's balls, couldst thou but understand Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping band, Slow swaying in the heaving waves, that round about thee bend, With sounds like breakers in a dream, blessing their ancient friend,— Oh ! couldst then know what heroes glide with longer steps round thee, Thine iron side would swell with pride, thou'dst leap within tho sea!"
The illustrations are good, some of them, as that of the hammerers at work (p. x.), which is very effective. "Like men before the foe" seems a little out of place. It is not usual to illustrate a simile. The char- acteristic pictures of the work of forging, and of tho sea-scones which the anchor is to visit, aro excellent.
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