SLINGSBY.-Mr. Forsyth has essayed a very difficult subject, and I cannot say that I think he has been perfectly successful. There is a style and a senti ment, I may say, consacré to Hebrew poetry, which is the only legitimate, or at all events effective, exponent of the feelings, religious, political, or social, of that people. It is not merely oriental; it is Biblical. We have moulded all our notions of Hebrew diction and thought upon the sublime recitals of their annalists, the burning rhapsodies of their seers, and the pure and lofty devotional ecstacy of their poets. Whatever falls short of these does not reproduce in our minds the true images of the Hebrews, and hence it is that few have achieved what so many have attempted. Milman has been very successful, and Byron occasionally and to a certain extent only. I mean no dispraise to our friend, therefore, when I say that he, too, has fallen short of the mark. POPLAR.-Ay, sir, he should have thrown into his poem more of the religious devotion, of the burning patriotism, of the absorbing, sorrowing love of country with which the heart of the exiled Israelite, pines for the stones of Jerusalem. Well, let it pass. I see he means to try his hand again, and let us hope the second attempt will be still better. BISHOP.-What comes next, Anthony? called Here are a couple of tales of chivalry. The first is "The sally from Salerno was not properly an event of the Crusades. Its date was 1016, while the first Crusade was not until 1096. Its connexion with those wars, however, the actors in it having been pilgrims returning from the Holy Land and their Saracen enemy will, perhaps, justify it as a subject for a ballad under this title. The inducements to those wars were the Moslem's oppression of the Christian pilgrims, and the Moslem irruptions into Christendom, which made it necessary to bridle that power by a Christian kingdom in the East. "The princes of Salerno were of the Longobard race, which will account for Waimar's Teutonic name and his daughter's. Historians tell us he offered the Normans an honourable settlement in his country in gratitude for their heroism, which they declined, but promised to send some of their countrymen, who accordingly came and founded the Norman dynasties of South Italy." I. CHRISTIAN Monk and Paynim Molla have the parchment clerkly scrolled, Stranger guests, ho! Norman pilgrims, what portends your strange array; II. Careless seem they, lightly deem they, those beleag'ring myriads bold, Featly ride those two-score riders, knights they seem, not slaves to kneel— And the thunder-cloud burst, crashing thro' the infidel array. Help, Mahomet! Damascus blades are dealing blows around in vain, III. 'Tis sweet evening; fading sunset sheds a gorgeous radiance down IV. "Gentle ladye, in fair Normandie, in mine own rugged land, Dwelleth she who first my knighthood's spurs bound on with her white hand; SLINGSBY.-A pleasant romaunt, and pleasantly sung. * SIR RAINULF'S HENCHMAN. WHAT stranger pauses at the castle gate, Are grouped, and meetly feast him at the board. And when, elated by the generous wine, Across the pilgrim's sun-browned features came Oft had he seen that knight of noble fame, Full long will Christendom his memory dree. "I left my home in Aquitaine, A minstrel in Count Raymond's* train; And ere we reached the blessed land His deeds were harped with warrior's joy. Of Dorylerun's bloody plain; How Famine swept away our bands Though more like savage beasts than men, Raymond, Count of Thoulouse, so distinguished in the first Crusade. During the siege of Antioch the besiegers were obliged to resort to cannibalism. Sorrows and sufferings seem past Rushed a boy stranger with bloody glaive- To search for some lord or some kinsman dead; All stark, lay Sir Rainulf, his buckler battered, "This stranger, whence came he?' the vassals all said, Ne'er had they seen him, but through the red tide And once had they marked, too, their master's eyes And the death-rigid face of a maiden fair On such beauty so ghastly, and blue eye so glazed, Till old Siegfried stept forth, By the cross on my sword, Through that wide castle chamber rose a wail Or passed in joys to bloom, or woe to wither. BISHOP.-Very good, Anthony, very good. I love those tales of knightly times. The genius of Scott has done for them in poetry what the old chroniclers and French romancists have effected in prose. I sigh when I think of the days when first I read "The most Ancient and Famovs Historie of the Renowned Beffry, a moveable wooden tower, covered with boiled hides to guard it from fire. It was used in sieges. Prince Arthur, King of Britaine," with worthy old William Caxton's preface to the Christian reader. SLINGSBY.-And what say you to Alfred Tennyson's delectable" Mort d'Arthur?" Does it not breathe the very spirit of olden song? POPLAR. It is beyond all praise. Here is a translation from an Idyl of Moschus by Academicus: By ocean's shore, when calm reclined, I hear the swift oar cleave the foam- SLINGSBY.-I marvel much, dear Anthony, that the minor poets of Greece are not better known and more cultivated in our own country. Nothing can be more sweet, rural, and graceful than the Idyls of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. Virgil did not disdain to borrow from them freely, and our own Milton and Ben Jonson have transferred many of their beauties to their own pages. Have you seen Mr. Frederick Ringwood's selections from the three poets? POPLAR.-Who has not. It is a masterly production-erudite, critical, and laborious; abounding with evidences of taste and research. The work, so far as it has gone, is alike an honour to the learned editor and to the heads of our University who induced him to undertake it. How comes it that a second part has not appeared? SLINGSBY.-Others must answer that question. Let us hope that the position which Mr. Ringwood now so worthily fills will afford him sufficient leisure to complete what he has so happily commenced. BISHOP.-Come, now, let me try my luck at a dive. POPLAR.-Be it so. "Good luck to your fishing; what catch ye to-night?" BISHOP.-A glorious take, by Neptune-a fish of our own, waters. Listen while I read for you THE WISH; OR, THE FALL OF THE STAR. I. As Dermot was tending his herds on the mountain, |