tional and a little absurd. The whole tone of the volume is one enthusiastic, indiscriminate panegyric upon Bismarck. The book is in a high degree open to adverse criticism; but it is still one of the most extraordinary and life-like volumes of contemporary biography with which we are acquainted.

They certainly take great liberties with the characters of public men in Germany, greater even than is the case in England. We have stories of Bismarck's beery days as a student, of his duels and his love affairs. Even in 1864 we find him writing: 'I have just been for an hour in the Volksgarten, unfortunately not incognito, as I was seventeen years ago-stared at by all the world. This existence on the stage is very unpleasant when one wishes to drink a glass of beer in peace.' Here is an incident of early days: 'At another establishment Bismarck had a little adventure. He had just taken a seat, when a peculiarly offensive expression was used at the next table concerning a member of the Royal Family. Bismarck immediately rose to his full height, turned to the speaker, and thundered forth: "Out of the house! If you are not off when I have drunk this beer, I will break this glass on your head!" At this there ensued a fierce commotion, and threatening outeries resounded in all directions. Without the slightest notice Bismarck finished his draught, and then brought the glass down upon the offender's pate with such effect that the glass flew into fragments, and the man fell down, howling with anguish. There was a deep silence, during which Bismarck's voice was heard to say, in the quietest tone, as if nothing whatever had taken place, "Waiter, what is to pay for this broken glass?"

But it must not be supposed that the beery element predominates. The author and editor have done their best to give us a clear account of the growth of Bismarck's mind and career; of his successful exertions to give solidarity to the Prussian throne; and of the patriotic German feeling that has been the basis of his aggrandisement of Prussia. We

trace his diplomatic career at Frankfort, where he thoroughly mastered the tortuous web of the diplomacy of the small states; at St. Petersburgh; and at Paris, where he learned to match himself against the astuteness of Napoleon. The pacification of the Luxembourg was, in its way, as decisive as the battle of Sadowa. In such a career there are many striking scenes, none more so than his visit to Prince Metternich at his château of Johannisberg, on the Rhine. The book is a vivid record of a great career, in many varied aspects of political and social life, and sheds much light on German politics, perhaps just now the most important politics of Europe.

RECENT POETRY.

When we come to look at the poetry of the season, after Mr. Tennyson's 'Holy Grail' no work challenges a higher degree of attention than the writings of Mr. Morris. It is to the credit of Mr. Morris that, after his first volume of poems, which, with great promise, had only equivocal success, he preserved a dead silence for ten years. It almost seemed that nothing would induce him to break his silence; but now he has begun to publish poetry, it seems that nothing will induce him to leave off publishing poetry. To say the ungracious truth, we are beginning to weary of Mr. Morris. He has given us three or four big volumes of poetry, and there is no reason in the nature of things why he should not give us thirty or forty. He can never exhaust the stores of classic and romantic fables; and any classic or romantic story is susceptible of being presented according to Mr. Morris's mode of presentation. There is always sweetness, tenderness and humanity'linked sweetness long drawn out' -and a faculty of presenting a series of distinct pictures before the mental eye; and his narrative babbles on with all the volubility of a Froissart or Monstrelet. His poems are, in fact, versified novelettes, very much after the fashion of the 'Decameron' or 'Pentameron;' and we doubt if, in any high sense of the

term, they can justly be entitled poetry. There is little concentration of thought, little energy of phrase, no delineation of character, no unity of action. We are not such Pharisees as to object to careless rhymes and verbal expletives; and we acknowledge that Mr. Morris leads us as unresisting captives with his beguiling verse. He leads us into the dreamland of fable, where we feel all the sweetness and lassitude of summer days, and yield up ourselves to pleasaunce and idlesse. But still we think that true poetry ought to have something stirring and invigorating: that it ought to enable us to rally the moral energies, to leave us in some measure refreshed and ennobled. Now there is nothing of this sort about Mr. Morris's poems. They are essentially sensuous; sometimes they are even sensual. There is something extremely Pagan about the whole conception of them. There is no doubt that Mr. Morris has real genius. Many a choice passage might be adduced in proof of this assertion. But his tone is too low, his style is too diffuse, to admit of his being associated with our greater poets. We shall have four bulky volumes of the Earthly Paradise, infinitely bigger than the four volumes of Mr. Browning's Ring and the Book,' not to mention the huge 'Life and Death of Jason,' and a new edition of the earlier poems and translations of an Icelandic Saga. This is rather hard lines. It is time that Mr. Morris's friends should manfully endeavour to put him under some sort of literary restraint, and remind him that even in literary matters there is, or ought to be, some sort of Statute of Limitations.

To each of his poems Mr. Morris prefixes some sort of 'Argument,' after the fashion of Greek plays and modern poems imitative of the Greek. His titles are briefer and vaguer than those presented by the clear Hellenic mind. Thus he has an argument to the poem quaintly entitled The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon: This tale, which is set forth as a dream, tells of a churl's son who won a fair queen to his love, and afterwards lost her, and yet in the end was not deprived of her.' Then we have the

Story of Accontius and Cydippe,' which Lord Lytton tells so well in the Lost Tales of Miletus,' with the brief argument, 'A certain man coming to Delos, beheld a noble damsel there, and was smitten with the love of her, and made all things of no account but the winning of her, which at last he brought about in strange wise.' This is the kind of programme to which we are invited; but instead of sweeping, as the true poet should, the whole diapason of human life and passion, Mr. Morris is simply and entirely the poet of earthly love.

We have a most sincere kindness for Mrs. Hervey, and give a hearty welcome to her 'Gift for all Seasons.' We do not feel precluded by the fact that some of the most brilliant of these poems have appeared in the pages of London Society,' from endeavouring to do justice to the poems in their collected form. Mrs. Hervey will, however, forgive us for saying that we have seen higher efforts of her muse even than those which we find in these pages. She has a true touch of lyric genius in these poems, and evidences of a deep, generous nature, such as belongs to the true poet. Our regret is that, instead of a cluster of pearls, somewhat carelessly strung together, Mrs. Hervey has not concentrated her genius on some single poem of some extent and unity. Such poetic stories as 'Lear's Fool' and 'A Strange Courtship' indicate how truly she could give a poetic embodiment to the scenery and incidents of our trite modern life. Amid such a multitude of lyrical pieces it becomes extremely difficult and somewhat invidious to make a selection. We can truly say that any of our readers would do well to keep this charming volume at hand, and refresh mind and spirit by occasional recurrence to its pages. There is an affecting little poem on the Prayer of Queen Caroline Matilda of Denmark, murdered in her twenty-third year-one of the darkest episodes in modern history. The prayer, written by the captive queen on her prison window, was, 'Oh, keep me

'Our Legends and Lives. A Gift for all Seasons.' By Eleonora Louisa Hervev. Trübner and Co.

innocent, make others great!' Mrs. Hervey's last verse is:

'Great Heaven confounds thy prayer. Now thou dost see

How God in love, not hate,
Took back thy innocence in taking thee,
And, taking, left thee great.'

Here is an exquisite little lyric, and with this we must positively hold our hand :

'TEARS.

Would some kind angel give me tears-
It seems a little thing,

A child's first need-I would not ask
The gems that crown a king.
The glad peace-bringers of the storm
Are drops the sun smiles through;
The healer of the parching rose
Is but a bead of dew.

Yet what am I, an atom sole

In Heaven's creative plan,

That I should ask the tenderest gift
God ever gave to man?"

One or two more volumes of poems might well be noticed. Faith Græme and other Poems,'* by Eleanor Watson, show much good taste and good feeling; and a few of them indicate greater promise than their present performance. I notice this volume because it is typical of

*Faith Græme, and other Poems, Sacred and Miscellaneous.' By Eleanor Watson.

many similar volumes. It is very nice that ladies of refined mind and intellectual tastes should fill up their leisure by writing fairly printable poetry; but we think that, as a rule, they would do well to keep their poetry in the sacred retirement of their desks until the time comes when their matured judgment truly decides that they are worthy of publication. Something more than the record of simple, sincere, graceful feeling is requisite to constitute poetry.

We have much pleasure in expressing our conviction that Mr. Grant's work on the Church Seasons, in several respects is valuable and unique. It performs a double or treble function. As a sacred Anthology it is an excellent one. It shows great poetical taste and an extraordinary amount of literary investigation. Mr. Grant has gone to far and profound sources; and, at the same time, his work is extremely rich in extracts drawn from the whole range of modern sacred song. The volume also contains much ecclesiastical information and sound literary criticism.

*The Church Seasons, Historically and Practically Illustrated.' By Alexander H. Grant, M.A.

with the omission of the part of the royal protagonist is as feeble as it is trite. The season without its scandals; the session minus its intrigues; society without its flirts; the drawing-rooms of dowagers without their gossip; the club-we take the standard of the popular idea-without its rumours; Brighton without its divorces and divorcies; Scarborough without its elopements - each of these, if the suggested bereftment were to be carried into execution, would seem institutions flat, stale, and unprofitable enough in all conscience. In a word, society would find itself generally out of joint if any one of its recognised and essential orders or institutions were to be straightway blotted out of existence. We hear, indeed, dim echoes of a report to the effect that the reforming of chaperons off the face of the earth is a scheme already in contemplation. The present is an adventurous age, and the pioneers of modern progress lightly rush in where the apostles of a more oldfashioned and reverential creed I would have feared to tread. There is no knowing at what point innovation is to stop. Who shall say that some plan analogous to Dean Swift's famous proposal for the utilisation of infants in Ireland may not be next promulgated and carried? that one fine morning the world may not be startled with learning that an association has been formed for the extinction of old fogeys? or that a select parliament of the disciples of social iconoclasm has unanimously passed a resolution to the effect that it is desirable that spinster ladies of a certain age should forthwith cease as an establishment to exist? It may be said that the world would still manage to get on if either of these measures of destruction were consummated; that the network of society would not be wholly unwoven; that balls would still be given; that garden parties would not pass away; that the fun of flirtation would remain; and that we should have no serious reason to be merged in incurable regret for what had been done. Nor is it likely that fashionable humanity will find it

self, its pleasures, and its routine very perceptibly affected by the reduction and destruction of Mr. Gladstone and his friends, so far as they have yet proceeded. Supposing, however, they were to go a step further, and, not content with discharging working men from the docks, closing the doors of the Woolwich and Sandhurst acade mies, and reducing the number of in prospectu ensigns in the line, were to come to the conclusion that it was, on the whole, advisable for the British guardsmen entirely to be eliminated from our military economy, how would society feel then? Mr. Lowe might quite conceivably take it into his head, and infect Mr. Cardwell with the idea, that these show sons of Mars in no way contribute to the sum of our national prosperity; that they are creatures ordained for purposes of consumption rather than production; and that the sooner they are got rid of as domestic and military encumbrances, the better for the Government and the governed alike. We repeat our question-What, in the event of such a threat, would be the feelings of society then? What protestations would there bewould there not be on the part of diplomatic mammas, of docile daughters, of the givers and takers of dinners and dances, and entertainments of every kind, order, and degree? What would be the feelings of countless carriage freights of be-muslined and paniered divinities, when, on driving down Pall Mall, they looked up in vain at the bay window of the compact little mansion, which all the world knows is the Guards' Club, for a glimpse of those warriors moustachioed or imberbes, youthful or mature, who are, par excellence, the metropolitan depositaries of gossip, the central sources of myriad episodes of flirtation-who, if the popular view be correct, are the chosen sons of pleasure in all its phases; whose prime mission it is to saunter elegantly through existence; who flit like butterflies from one hunting-ground of bliss to another; who know no more toilsome campaigningground than that of St. James; who