wishes, reports:
Your faithful husband, agreeably to your

"1. That he is still alive.

"2. That he has discovered the North Pole from Lincoln Cathedral, but without

Directory for the Convention, of the Consulate for the Directory, and of the Empire for the Consulate. Finally, in 1805, he came to Paris, at his mother's wish, to finish his studies. The young student was very poor, and spent most thus soon drawn into literary associations, and of his time in the public libraries. He was

The Prince's first visit to Balmoral is pleas- discovering either Captain Ross, or Sir John began to write for the papers. Four years

antly described. Sir James Clark esteemed the whole of Deeside, from Charleston of Aboyne to Castleton of Braemar, to be one of the driest districts of Scotland, and especially of the Highlands, and no spot along the valley to be more favored in this respect than Balmoral. In "Leaves from Her Majesty's Journal," her first impressions of Balmoral are thus reported : ·

Franklin.

later, he made his début as an author, pub3. That he has arrived at Brocklesby, and lishing an edition of Gerard's "French Synoreceived the address.

66

4. That he has subsequently rode [! rid-nyms," with a scholarly introduction of his snow and with icicles on his nose. den?] out, and got home quite covered with own; and following this by a book entitled "Lives of the French Poets," and by a very admirable translation of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall."

5. That the messenger is waiting to carry off this letter, which you will have in Windsor by the morning.

“6. Last, not least (in the dinner speeches' phrase), that he loves his wife, and remains devoted husband.

66

Brocklesby, April 17, 1849."

"Looking down from the hill which over-her hangs the house, the view is charming. To the left you look to the beautiful hills surrounding Loch-na-Gar, and to the right, towards Ballater, to the glen (or valley) along which the Dee winds, with beautiful wooded hills, which remind us very much of the Thüringen Wald. It was so calm and so solitary, of his life, it did one good as one gazed around; and the pure mountain air was most refreshing. seemed to breathe freedom and peace, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils. The scenery is wild, and yet not desolate; and every thing looks much more prosperous

and cultivated than at Loggan."

All

The particulars of the Prince Consort's efforts toward reform in the educational system of the universities are full of interest. He expresses some sound ideas as to the policy that should be pursued toward Ireland. chapter is that which treats of the Prince of A fine Wales's education, and the happy selection of Mrs. Lyttelton to be the royal children's governess.

The Prince Consort was not always infallible. In 1847 he recorded the opinion, that

expense

His literary reputation was now established, and the most distinguished authors of the day welcomed their young comrade cordially. Even the Emperor Napoleon made overtures In 1848, the Prince visits Ireland, and cor- to him, and would gladly have enlisted the responds with Sir Robert Peel with reference young scholar in his service. But the stern to the Irish University. signalized by the most honorable achievement youth from receiving place and fortune at the The next year was severity of conscience held back the penniless the Great Exhibition of 1851. Perhaps the guished abilities won their recognition from the projection and supervision of of principle. For all that, his distinmost extraordinary contingency that he en- the imperial government. M. de Fontanes, countered in his long career was the tender Napoleon's enlightened Minister of Public of the chief command of the British army, Instruction, bestowed upon Guizot the Promade to him by the Duke of Wellington. His fessorship of Modern History in the Sorbonne. tion to establish ecclesiastical Sees in Eng- historian entered upon his recognized career. conduct with reference to the Pope's proposi- And thus, at the age of twenty-five, the great land was firm and manly. His first historical work was selected with which we have noted; and altogether is a too excited to deal rationally with the quesThis work has few faults, one or two of signal ability. The minds of men were yet to history, though many pages might appro- present, M. Guizot devoted himself to the vivid biography, and a valuable contribution tions of modern history. Abandoning the priately have been excised. early periods of the national existence. Men of all parties could be interested in the GalloRoman time and the early German invasions. His long labors are summed up in his 46 History of Civilization in France," and his says on the History of France," tion and exactitude to the best books of the says a distinguished critic, "equal in erudiGerman school, and written with a majesty and a force which often reminds the reader of Bossuet and of Montesquieu."

the minor sovereigns of Europe were making FEW

rapid progress in liberalizing their administrations; but Prussian events of 1848 gave the lie direct to his ratiocination. His hope of restoring validity to the Diet proved wholly

vain.

During the year 1848, not less than ninetyeight despatches were received or sent out at the foreign office. A bad grammatical blunder is found on page 63. Sir Henry Bulwer writes:

"Es"works,"

France, be left undisturbed to the duties of But such a man as Guizot could not, in his professorship, and the wider field of influof those valuable works originally prepared ence which was opened to him by the printing as lectures for the Sorbonne. Under Louis

GUIZOT'S HISTORY OF FRANCE.* NEW careers have been more remarkable than the one which closed, Sept. 13, 1874, at Val Richier, a country-house situated near Caen, in one of the most picturesque parts of Normandy. Born in 1787, François Pierre Guillaume Guizot began life amid the horrors of the French Revolution. His father, an advocate at Nîmes, paid upon the scaffold the penalty of a conscientious loyalty to the fallen king. His mother, who never laughed again after her husband's death, took refuge with her son in Switzerland; and here, in Geneva, for more than ten years, the boy XVIII. he held office; in 1830, he was elected worked steadily at his lessons, becoming not only master of the classic tongues, but also of sion of Louis Philippe, was called to the portto the Chamber of Deputies; and, on the accesEnglish, Italian, and German. He studied folio of the Interior, then the most important deeply the erudite and profoundly philosoph- department of government. During the entire his faculties did not rise above the average ical literature of the latter language, and level, and in less favorable circumstances he the effect of this training was destined to would not have surpassed mediocrity. He de- exercise an influence over his writings to serves credit, however, for his profound ac- the very end of his life. During his school quaintance with the politics of his time, and days he witnessed the substitution of the his ability to cite dates and authorities on demand. Lord Normanby complimented him Times. By M. Guizot. Translated by Robert Black, * A Popular History of France, from the Earliest highly for this excellence. He was not devoid | M.A. Boston: Estes & Lauriat.

The Queen of Spain would act wisely in the present critical state of affairs, if she was to strengthen the executive government by widening the bases on which the government

reposes.

There is no good ground for attributing to the Prince Consort a high degree of genius:

with the administration; serving a part of the reign of the citizen-king, Guizot was identified time as ambassador in London, and during the last six years as Minister of Foreign Affairs. His public life closed in 1818, with lishment of the second Republic. From that the abdication of his sovereign and the estab

I time till his death he devoted himself to his

historic studies; and when, in 1873, at the age of eighty-six, he was asked to return to the Court of St. James, he declined that honor. As a statesman, Guizot cannot be accounted great, if the proof of greatness be success. His political career," says the Spectator, was a splendid disaster, and it was such because he knew books better than men. Had

66

dawn that waketh the dead;

It shall yearn and be oft-times holpen, and forget their deeds no more

author's brain, but is the straightforward story And the hour that Brywhild hath hastened, and the
of the life of those days, as it was lived by the
men and women whose names are so familiar
to us. In fact, it might be said of Guizot, as
some one has happily phrased it, “His habit-
ual rhetoric was a slight under-statement of
the case."

To the charm of the very superior typohe been less of a professor, had he been more graphical execution which makes these six teachable, or had he not regarded his fellow-volumes a delight to the eye of every lover of beings with infinite disdain, France might still books, is added a series of illustrations, more have been a monarchy, with Louis Philippe II. than three hundred in number, printed from as her king. Guizot was mainly responsible electrotypes and quite equal to those of the for the ruin of his own party. But it would French edition. The selection of points to be a mistake to deny the claim of greatness illustrate has been skilfully made by M. de to all statesmen who have missed the main Neuville, and shows well how picturesque in object of their life; and it is difficult to with- incident and abounding in dramatic situations hold such a title from Guizot, when we look is the story of la belle France. Nearly every closely at his career." illustration," says Professor Niemeyer of the Yale School of Fine Arts, “is an artistic conception, vividly presenting the incident which forms its subject. M. de Neuville's admirable richness of invention and historical knowledge of the costumes and architecture of the different periods embraced in the work, together with the artistic power by which this knowledge has been wrought into picturesque effects, place these illustrations far above those we are accustomed to see in works of this character."

As a historian, however, this great Frenchman's rank is of the very highest. He possesses pre-eminently the historic faculty, the power of distinguishing what are the ruling principles by which men have been guided in those important crises to which the attention of following generations never ceases to revert with eager interest, feeling that those were times when the welfare of humanity hung in the balance. With these great epochs Guizot has dealt in a spirit of the most profound and worthy criticism. Had his work ceased with these, the efforts of his youth and middle life, we must have been greatly his debtors. But, by some happy inspiration, he devoted the last years of his life, the consummate maturity of his mental powers, to a complete and continuous history of his native land. No work of the kind existed; studies in plenty, sketches of particular epochs, and outlines more or less filled up, have been produced from time to time, and by able hands; but the story of la grande nation has never before been unfolded

in a narrative at once concise and complete, symmetrical and full. In the words of Charles Sumner, To a most interesting subject he brings the experience of a statesman, the study of a professor, and the charm of an accomplished writer."

The history of this brilliant French nation

Till the new sun beams on Baldur and the happy,

sealess shore."

The form of the Niebelungen story which Mr. Morris has chosen for illustration is that contained in the Icelandic saga of the Volsungs, of which the poet published a literal prose translation some five or six years since. He prefers this Icelandic form to the more familiar one adopted by Jordan for his great

poem

of the Niebelungen or Sigfrid's saga, and by Wagner for his trilogy. He speaks of it, in the preface to the aforesaid prose translation, as "the most complete and dramatic form of that great epic of the North, which ought to be to all our race what the tale of Troy was to the Greeks;" and he has brought to the execution of his own long-meditated version a high and constant enthusiasm, and a tempered force and finished grace of poetical expression, which will go far toward securing for his subject the supreme place in our affections which he claims for it.

The poem is in four books or divisions. The first, Sigmund, contains the story of the ancestry of the great Sigurd (Sigurd being identical with the Sigfrid of the German Niebelungen), and especially of his father, SigThe American edition has the valuable sup-mund himself, a most illustrious hero. The plement of full Genealogical Tables of the royal houses who have ruled France; and we take pleasure, also, in calling attention to the unusually full and well-arranged Index, made expressly for Messrs. Estes & Lauriat, and greatly superior to those of the French and English editions.

66

THE STORY OF SIGURD.*

second, Regin, records the birth of Sigurd; his fostering by Regin, the king of the dwarfs ; how he slew, when scarcely arrived at manhood, the great serpent Fafuir, who guarded, upon the Glittering Heath, that immense treasure of gold, so famous in all Scandinavian story, which brought doom to all who obtained it; how he subsequently slew Regin himself, and carried his treasure to the burg of the Niblungs or Niebelungen. In the third book, Brywhild, the passion of the story IN "Sigurd the Volsung" we have at once culminates. We hear once more, but with the manliest and the loveliest work of Mr. unexampled interest, the original of the countMorris's genius. The atmosphere of soft and less fables of Sleeping Beauty and Fairy Prince : slightly enervating sadness which pervaded the how Sigurd, riding towards the cloudy home Earthly Paradise” and “ Jason" is replaced of the Niblungs, finds Brywhild asleep upon by one clearer and more tonic. These Norse Hindfell, and breaks the strong enchantment heroes fight under skies fraught with storm, which had bound her; of their betrothal, and is like a drama. Every man plays his own and awesome with the shadowy footsteps of the cruel craft which parted them; of Sigurd's part; the events of each man's life are linked the hastening Norns; but they fight with cheer- marriage to the daughter of the Niblungs, closely together; they result from his own ful and steadfast valor, and they die trium-Gudrun, and of Brywhild's to the Nibacts, and have wide influence on the society phant. The last word of all, which ends their lung prince Gunnar or Gunther; of the anin which he lives. This independence of per- strange, eventful history," is not the empty guish of both when the plot was discovered sonal action seems almost incredible. In the echo of " in vain! in vain!" but a promise, a which had estranged them; of their love, hands of a less serious and philosophic writer, watch-word, or rather a pass-word for adthe history of France would be but a series of mission to a brighter and securer life: kaleidoscopic changes. M. Guizot, however, "They are gone, the lonely, the mighty, the hope of has proved himself worthy of the utmost confidence. We may yield ourselves without hesitation to his guidance. Above all, he is just, and never sacrifices an iota of the truth for the sake of dramatic effect. Hence, we are absolutely certain that all the tragedy and the comedy and the melodrama we find in this wonderful history is no weaving of the

It

It

the ancient earth:

66

shall labor and bear the burden as before the days
of their birth;

shall groan, in its blind abiding, for the day that
Sigurd hath sped;

their honor, their struggles, and their death. The fourth book, Gudrun, tells of her subsequent marriage to Atti, and the frightful manner in which he avenged the death of Sigurd upon her Niblung brethren.

Meagre as this outline is, it may suffice to give some slight idea of the power and consistency of the story. To illustrate by the

*The Story of Sigurd the Volsung, and the Fall ordinary method of quotation the splendor of of the Niblungs. By William Morris. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1877.

Mr. Morris' literary treatment is a far more difficult matter; for the strong thread of the

narrative is hardly broken by a single episode, and, for so long a poem, the equality of excellence in the versification is marvellous. We open the book at random, and light on the melodious quatrain in which Gudrun is introduced:

And there is Gudrun his daughter, and light she

stands by the board,

And fair are her arms in the hall as the breaker's flood is poured.

She comes, and the earls keep silence; she smiles, and men rejoice;

She speaks, and the harps, unsmitten, thrill faint to her queenly voice."

And space must certainly be made for the exquisite passage which describes the bridal journey of Brywhild, when she went heartbroken, yet unflinching in her obedience to Fate, to fulfil her troth plighted to Gunnar:

66 So wear the ten days over, and the morrow morn is

come,

And the light-foot expectation flits through the Niblung home;

And the girded hope is ready, and all people are astir,

When the voice of the keen-eyed watchman from the topmost tower they hear:

caressed and delighted. . . . Lord Shelburne raised me from the bottomless pit of humiliation: he made me feel I was something."

Assailed with vile abuse in the House by one Fullerton, Shelburne challenged him, and was slightly wounded in the duel.

He was a stanch friend to the American colonies, and never ceased to denounce the ministerial policy pursued against them. The state of affairs there he characterized as "the native offspring of ministerial ignorance, obstinacy, and want of principle. . . . Much as

ure ever yet adopted for the telling of a long
story in verse. No English measure can com-
pare with the Latin hexameter for such a
purpose, -not even the blank verse of Mil-
ton or of Tennyson. But this, which is
founded on the original Niebelungen measure,
only infinitely refined and beautified, seems to
us to approach within sight of the unattainable
model. It is noble, yet changeful; supple
and sustained. There is a kind of wistful
sweetness, both in its hurrying anapests and
its lingering iambics, which makes them cling
to the memory; while the frequent use of he valued America, necessary as the posses-
alliteration marks its kinship with the primeval
forms of Scandinavian story. Whatever its
immediate reception may be, William Morris's
Sigurd" is certain eventually to take its place
among the few great epics of the English

tongue.

THE LIFE OF THE EARL OF
SHELBURNE.*

THIS

"Look forth from the burg, O Niblungs! and the war-ful

gate of renown;

And they ride on the roan and the gray, and the dapple-gray and the red,

-

sion of the colonies might be to the power and independence of Great Britain; fatal as her final separation might prove, whenever that event might take place, as a friend to liberty, as a reverer of the British Constitution, as a lover of natural and political justice, he would be much better pleased to see America for ever severed from Great Britain, than restored to her possession by force of arms, or conquest."

a

This work gives a comprehensive and satisHIS volume covers a period of twenty-nine factory review of the political history comprised years, 1776 to 1805, - the most event-in Shelburne's public life. He bore so large in the statesman's life. Beginning with part in the government of England that his the death of Chatham, it includes a recital of own story is, in effect, a general narrative. Shelburne's relations with Lord North and George III. With the latter he was, in later years, long a favorite, though disliked by the king in 1782-83; and during the closing events of the American war he approved him

THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.*

self a wise and able statesman. His conduct THIS is one of the most powerful novels
in the negotiations for peace is especially wor-olution. In style, management of the plot, and
of the day, -a story of the French Rev-
thy of praise; his choice of Strachey and
Oswald being especially judicious. The his-
tory of his administration is concise, but com-
prehensive. Shelburne stood almost alone in
his opinion as to the government of India, in

1773. He would control that country by means
of publicity and inquiry, rather than by actual

And many a bloom of the May-tide on their crispy government interference. He would leave its

Shelburne, happening to read Bentham's "Fragment on Government," desired to make "As the lovely-wristed maidens on the summer ways the author's acquaintance. they see.

teem, not to speak of affection,' writes Bentham,
'marks more unequivocal one man could not
receive from another, than, in the course of
about twelve years, I received from Lord
Though not its existence, my
attachment to the great cause of man received
its first development in the affection I found
in that heart, and the company I found in that
house. Among the friendships it gave me
was Dumont's; one that it helped to form was
Romilly's.... By Lord Mansfield I was
aisappointed; at Lord Shelburne's I was in-
demnified: at Kerwood, I should have been
mortified and disgusted; at Bowood I was

*The Life of the Earl of Shelburne, afterwards First We have heard the complaint made that Marquis of Lansdowne. With Extracts from his the versification of "Sigurd" becomes painfully Papers and Correspondence. By Lord Edward Fitzmonotonous after no long reading. To our- maurice. 8vo pp. 597. $4. New York: Macmillan self, it is the most satisfying English meas- & Co.

dramatic strength, it is excellent. The scene is laid on the coast of Brittany. The hero, Rohan, is chief of the young men of his neighborhood, renowned for his valor, strength, and enterprise. He is betrothed to Marcelle, daughter of Corporal Duval, an old and devoted soldier of Napoleon. She is a model of loveliness and moral beauty.

The allies combining against Napoleon, a conscription is ordered. Rohan, having been instructed by one Arfoll, a man of great learning, in the doctrines of liberty, resolves that he will not serve if he is drawn. This resolution is violently opposed by the Corporal, whose loyalty is uncompromising. The drawing takes place, Rohan absenting himself. Marcelle draws on his behalf, and finds that she has sealed his doom. But he has disappeared, and troops are sent in pursuit of him. How he evades them for months, suffering hunger, fatigue, thirst, to the extremity of human en

durance, is told in a narrative of almost unexampled power. He occupies a vast cliff, called “The Cathedral,” and, in its inaccessible fastnesses, sustains for months a siege by hundreds of troops. His only companion is a goat, which acts as carrier of provisions trans

* The Shadow of the Sword. A Romance. By Robert Buchanan. 16mo. pp. 408. New York. Lovell, Adam, & Wesson.

sea is calm as glass, and every crag is mir-THIS is the first literary essay of its writer, inevitably destined to lower her in Arther's

him rises the great Menhir, with the village For she had been thinking of him and of lying far beneath. The sunlight falls above Alice. The story of his old forgotten love for him and around him, clothing as with a white this dead woman, who had been dead so long, veil his figure and that of the gentle girl. All so long, had appealed to Bell's imagination, had is not lost; for with his desolation her love has touched her fancy, with a curious force. The grown, and she herself remains to him,-chast-girl was attracted, fascinated, preoccupied.

But he does not rave when he speaks of one *Kismet. No Name series. 16mo. $1. Boston: who see her. Between herself and Harold a who lingers in the waste out yonder. Far Roberts Brothers.

ing gradually warmer with years. The Chiltern family had once owned a fine estate, called The Chase; but in the preceding generation it had passed out of their hands. The father's eager desire, inherited by the son, was to repossess it. Harold grows up with an independent mind, and, having graduated at Oxford, resolves to engage in a mercantile career. He goes to India, makes a lucrative engagement, and in a few years saves five thousand pounds. But this sum was only one-sixteenth of the needed eighty thousand. Sent home in charge of Mrs. Macgregor, the wife of his superior, he hears that Azalea is at Ems, with Lady Elliott and her daughter Margaret. He joins them there, and their vows are joyfully renewed. Azalea had been beset by two wooers, Col. St. John and Sir Philip Hamilton; the latter a man of wealth. She encourages neither, and both withdraw their pretensions. Returning home with Harold, he announces their engagement to his father, who objects to it as thwarting his project of uniting Harold with Margaret, and thus regaining "The Chase" for the Chiltern family.

pro

repur

66

Mr. George L. Raymond is not a great
poet, if one may judge by his "Colony Bal-
Our
lads." These are seven in number: "
First Break with the British; " "The Last
Cruise of the Gaspee; The Lebanon
Boys in Boston; The Crown's Fight
against the Town's Right," this heading is
about the best thing in the book; The
Rally of The Farmers; Ethan Allen:
How Barton took the General." The best of
them is the third, which is quite spirited; the
rest are mere prosaic narratives in rhyme.
There are some very obscure passages,

this, for instance:

"Our pale wives' haunted breaths."

Departing, promised, ere my life should cease,
To come again, forewarning me of death
The palmer, with his wild, unearthly eyes,
Unchanged, nor looking older by a day,
Than when I saw him forty years ago,
Stood here but now, and in a solemn voice
Spake thus to me: King, I have come again,
As I foretold; thou art, hast been, a king,
And monstrous evils cumber all the land,
While over all a threatening shadow falls,
Still growing darker; Death now draweth near
To claim you his; and afterward the land
And throne will pass by deed, red writ in battle,
To a stranger, as I told you formerly.
Come, are you ready?' Then, I answered him:
And you spake to me, Harold, and you, Aldred;
But when I looked again, the thing was gone."
A more simply beautiful volume of verse we

They should have chewed orris-root or car- have rarely seen. Its measure is melodious damon seeds.

What does this mean?

"Alas! to think that Heaven above
Should favor man no more!"

--

We had supposed that Heaven had pretty liberally favored the American man, and have not heard of any diminution in its beneficence. He yields to his son, however, reWhere did Mr. Raymond get his news? This 46 luctantly. Presently there comes a letter poet" puts into the mouth of from Lugano, the home of Azalea's maternal the pronounced atheist, Ethan Allen, such degrandfather, announcing his dangerous illness, vout words as it is impossible that he ever - that he demanded the and urging her presence. The young pair could have uttered, are married, so that Harold may with surrender of Ticonderoga in the name of priety become Azalea's escort, and together Jehovah. This statement is historical; but, they seek the place of Augustus Chiltern's in the face of the irrefutable evidence as to wooing. The old Jew is near death, but Allen's unbelief, how can we accept it? warmly welcomes his grand-daughter. Soon [Hurd & Houghton.] he dies. His will bequeaths to her eighty thousand pounds, which secures the chase of The Chase." John Chiltern's exultation may be imagined; he admits to his son that he was wrong in opposing the marriage. The pair are exceptionally well suited to one another, and begin a happy life. Margaret Elliott had been a brilliant and young lady, and signalized herself by eloping with a captain in the army; they soon quarrelled and were divorced. Her aim, thereafter, was to secure Harold for herself, and, as a means to that end, she strove to win Azalea to worldliness. But her failure was thorough; and she had to resign herself to the sight of him as the husband of another. The story is fresh, and interesting throughout. [Harper & Brothers.]

66

fast"

-"A Point of Honor," by Mrs. Annie Edwards, is a very good novel. The heroine is a beautiful young girl, Jane Grand, whose descent is wrapped in mystery. She wins the regard of Gifford Rohun, the squire of the neighborhood, to the surprise of all: But her guardian tells her that her father was a convict, and the betrothal was abrogated. Gifford still loves, but, under the circumstances, cannot marry her. He goes away, leaving her to mourn. She is more than ever drawn to Mr. Follett, the vicar; but their relations take on no serious complexion. After a long absence Gifford returns, and renews his attentions to Jane, but goes away again. At last the Parson offers himself to Jane, and they are married. Jane finds happiness as the vicar's wife. [Sheldon & Co.]

The Index of the Atlan'ic Monthly, 1854-1876, has been prepared by the competent hands of Mr. Horace E. Scudder. It contains full descriptions, author's names, &c., of all but thirty articles. The editor has been at great pains to collect the needed information, and it is to be regretted that at its end he found it still imperfect. [Hurd and Houghton.]

- It is rather remarkable that an unknown
American poet should have written a poem
entitled "The Sons of Godwin," quite a year
before Tennyson essayed the similar subject;
This new writer is Mr. Wm. Leighton, of
Wheeling, W. Va. We quote some fine pas-
sages from his poem (from the dialogue of
Harold and Edith, his beloved, who, at the
battle of Senlac, dies on his dead body):
" Edith, I love you as a wife, not cousin.
And the church bans and interdicts such marriage.
I long have struggled to repress my love,
And closely shut my lips when my wild words
Would have poured out the passion of my heart,
Because such love would be a thing accurst
By mitred prelates of our scrupulous church;
But in my heart the passion has so grown
That I am powerless to restrain its floods,
And needs must tell you, Edith, of my love.
'Tis not unholy, such true love as mine,
However frowns on it the holy church;
For the church grants indulgences ofttimes,
By which such interdiction is removed:
On the which hope I rest my happiness,
Although King Edward, in his pious zeal,
May long withhold consent that we may wed.
had resolved my love should be untold
Until such time as brighter promise dawned;
But now, departing from you and from England,
My heart breaks thus the silence of my lips."
Among the last words of King Edward were
these:

"A strange dream, Lords. My soul, a premonition
That this your earthly life draws near an end.
Oh take me, saints, to dwell with you in heaven!
God give me strength-if this thing comes of thee,
And not of demons- to relate the story!
The vision I have seen came to me thus:
In Normandy, full forty years ago,

I was young then, alas! how strange it seems!
Old now and sick, -
- a palmer came to me;
A strange, weird man, with eyes that wildly gleamed,
As if they looked on things most horrible.
He told me I should be a king, and rule
In Eng'and many, many troubled years;
That sin would flourish underneath my sceptre
Until God's vengeance shadowed all the land;
After my death, within a year and day,
My kingdom should be vanquished by a foe,
And all the land by demons overrun:
Then, when I asked him how to save the land,
He told me, 'Nay, the land cannot be saved.'

and absolutely faultless. We shall be surprised if Mr. Leighton does not take high rank among American poets. [J. B. Lippincott & Co.]

- Messrs. Barnes & Co. have published an excellent text-book, by Professor Steele, called "Fourteen Weeks in Zoology." It is profusely illustrated, and contains full and thorough information as to its subject.

-The translation of Alphonse Daudet's "Fromont jeune et Risler aîné," published by Messrs. Estes and Lauriat under the title of "Sidonie." is one of the most important books of the month in the domain of light literature. To this domain we relegate fiction, as a matter of course; and yet in some cases a novel, without losing the characteristics that make it entertaining to the careless reader, has a value which lifts it absolutely above the region of mere amusement and pastime. That

Sidonie" is one of these exceptional novels has been recognized fully by the French nation itself; as is well attested by the fact that twenty editions of three thousand copies each have already been required in Paris, and that the book has been crowned by the French Academy. To do justice to the various strong points of this novel would be impossible in the space at our command. We shall content ourselves with briefly noting one: the finely contrasted central group of the three young women of the book,-Sidonie, Désirée, and Claire Fromont. They are nearly of the same age, and certain phrases of description show them as not unlike in personal appearance: Sidonie, a little sylph, pale and pretty; Désirée, with her refined face, and the high-bred pallor caused by an in-door life; and Claire, no less young and pretty than Sidonie. But with this, the resemblance ceases. Sidonie is the personification of cold, calculating worldliness; Désirée is the poor, patient, working girl; Claire, the sweetest wife and mother in the world, and both Désirée and Claire are embodiments of self-devotion. Between the two stands Sidonie, working mischief to both, and death to one. Sidonie in childhood lives under the same roof with Désirée; in her married life, she is thrown constantly with Claire. From Désirée she steals her lover; from Claire, her husband. She is faithless in turn to both men, as she has been from the first to her own husband; and, cruel as she is to the women who are nearest to her, the men who love her suffer even more at her hands. The scene is laid in the middle-class life of Paris. There is not a titled personage in the book; and there is a straight-forward simplicity, and an absence of pretence and glamour, about the way in which the story is told, which is very striking. The style of the translation is so very good, that the reader can scarcely believe the book is not before him in its original form.