made the count too passive and philosophic to excite a strong interest: he has Hamlet's weaknesses without Hamlet's excuses. Under his circumstances, some men would be ready to effect a social revolution for the sake of gratifying their affections, and would consider the extinction of a wretch like Mitchka, and the conflagration of a wing of a chateau (afterwards paid for), a very minor step in the progress of their enterprise. We are unable to judge whether the aspect of serf life in Russia has been in all respects faithfully portrayed; but a heightening of its more repulsive features would have certainly added impressiveness to the picture. It is also doubtful whether readers will be altogether satisfied with Mr. Helps's style. There are few, if any, brilliant passages, and the metre seems throughout faulty, whether from a desire to avoid an appearance of too great elaboration, or from want of musical ear, we cannot say. But it does not read pleasantly or smoothly, and many parts are nothing more that metrical prose. The passage containing the interview of Oulita with the emperor (pp. 164-170), and which is too long for extract, is an average specimen of Mr. Helps's manner. Its arguments are very clear and logical; but we would ask those who have read it, whether it is adapted to persuade an emperor, and whether it is the language which would be used by a woman pleading for the safety of her lover?

We cannot say, in conclusion, that this book will increase the reputation of the author of Friends in Council. We would much rather see Mr. Helps's opinion of other dramatists, which we are certain would be just and sound, than such an attempt as this to compete with them. We can imagine his writing graceful meditative poems, such as those by which Mr. Matthew Arnold first became favourably known to the world. But the songs in the volume before us are remarkable for the absence of that peculiar lightness and verve which constitutes the merit of such productions, as the scenes are for their want of energy. Mr. Helps's Pegasus is well-shaped and well-groomed, but he has not the full-blooded vivacity of the genuine dramatic animal. He is tame, and comparatively thin, and, though he ambles pleasantly enough, seems to have undergone the now popular process of Rarey-fication.

It was not without some surprise that we found Andromeda to be a poem as classical in its nature as its name would naturally have led us to expect. Good as Mr. Kingsley's scholarship undoubtedly is, and liberal as his cultivation has at all times shown itself, a purely classical poem was about the last thing to be looked for from a writer of his literary tastes

and social sympathies. He has so uniformly subordinated his productions to some moral purpose, not only implicitly, but with set design and frequently with professed application; has so often seemed to convey the lesson, that all that is beautiful in art or literature is but a mean and not an end, and that the aim of our endeavours in either should be something practical and earnest, and capable of immediate reference to our actual life, and the work which lies before us-that the announcement of Andromeda prepared us to receive an allegory or a parable, whether serious or playful, rather` than a simple narrative poem. Some of Mr. Kingsley's previous titles would almost warrant such an inference. Phaethon is an old classical fable, not unconnected with Mr. Kingsley's pet element of water; but the modern Phaethon is a Platonic dialogue on Pantheism. . Glaucus is an old classical fable also of a marine character; but the modern Glaucus tells us of scientific wonders, and does not trouble himself about Scylla. Andromeda is also an old classical fable not less aqueous; and we were not sure that the modern Andromeda might not prove allegorical, and be intended as a palinode, warning young ladies against allowing the study of Actinic, and other fascinating seamonsters, to encroach on the time allotted to district visiting. These apprehensions have proved groundless, and Mr. Kingsley may be congratulated on having added to our literature a graceful and charming poem, which unites the statuesque elegance of its ancient models with much of the rough strength and vigour for which its author's works have been always remarkable.

Andromeda is written in English hexameters ; and the first merit which strikes us is, that they are the best English hexameters we have ever read. The two principal specimens of this metre which our readers are most likely to have seen, are Longfellow's Evangeline, and Clough's Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich. The former, though generally smooth and flowing, is often slovenly in expression; and many things are admitted which would have been excluded from a poem written in a metre more frequently practised. The metre itself also is frequently defective, and forces words out of their ordinary prose pronunciation-in plainer terms, is guilty of "false quantities." We have heard persons confess themselves unable from that very circumstance to take in the rhythm of Evangeline at all. Mr. Clough's poem avoids this fault by making no pretensions to accuracy of metre, the lines being almost as often spondaic as not, and allowing the exigencies of the sense to expand or contract the verse to almost any extent. But Mr. Kingsley seems, whether

from carefulness or a naturally good ear, to have succeeded perfectly in this respect; so that his verses, even if read as prose, will unavoidably preserve their rhythm, and a reader will fall into the swing of the lines without effort. Ladies may be assured that they will be able to read it correctly, however innocent they may be of dactyl, spondee, ictus, or cæsura: and this is perhaps the best test of the success of any classical metre. The finish of his language is also remarkable, and seems to have been attended to with as much care as would have been employed in more familiar metres, where novelty could not SO much be relied on

for effect.

Ovid has related the story of Andromeda in his Metamorphoses, and introduces her with great picturesqueness as she is first seen by Perseus; who, as he flies through the air, observes some object looking like a white statue on a rock

"So sweet her form, so exquisitely fine,

She seem'd a statue by some hand divine;
Had not the wind her waving tresses show'd,
And down her cheek the melting sorrows flow'd."
(Eusden's Translation.)

Mr. Kingsley begins after a more orderly fashion:

Over the sea, past Crete, on the Syrian shore to the southward,

Dwells in the well-tilled lowland a dark-haired Æthiop people,

*

Skilful, but feeble of heart; for they know not the lords of Olympus,

Lovers of men; neither broad-browed Zeus, nor Pallas Athené,

Teacher of wisdom to heroes, bestower of might in the battle;

Fearing the stars of the sky, and the roll of the blue salt water,

Fearing all things that have life in the womb of the seas and the rivers,

Eating no fish to this day, nor ploughing the main, like the Phonics,

Manful with black-beaked ships, they abide in a sorrowful region,

Vexed with the earthquake, and flame, and the seafloods, scourge of Poseidon.

The land is yearly overwhelmed by a destructive flood, succeeded by a monster" bred of the slime," which devours" of the fairest, cattle and men, and maids." The king and his people cast lots to discover whose crime has provoked the deities of the sea to inflict this scourge, and the lot falls on Cassiopeia, the queen :

Stately she came from her place, and she spoke in the midst of the people.

"Pure are my hands from blood: most pure this heart in my bosom.

Yet one fault I remember this day; one word have I spoken;

Rashly I spoke on the shore, and I dread lest the sea should have heard it.

Watching my child at her bath, as she plunged in the joy of her girlhood,

Fairer I called her in pride than Atergati, queen of the

ocean.

Judge ye if this be my sin, for I know none other."

Cassiopeia's boast is pronounced to be the crime required, and Andromeda must be sacrificed to the monster, that the goddess may accept her, and the land be purged from its pollution by her blood. She is taken out at night and set, "with her face to the eastward,"

Under a crag of the stone, where a ledge sloped down to the water;

There they set Andromeden, most beautiful, shaped like a goddess,

Lifting her long white arms wide-spread to the walls of the basalt,

Chaining them, ruthless, with brass; and they called on the might of the Rulers.

Andromeda remains all night "tearless, dumb with amaze," till at midnight, canopied with mists,

Rose from their seaweed chamber the choir of the mystical sea-maids.

Bathed round with the fiery coolness, Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, immortal: but others,

Pitiful, floated in silence apart; in their bosoms the sea-boys,

Slain by the wrath of the seas, swept down by the anger of Nereus;

Hapless, whom never again on strand or on quay shall their mothers

Welcome with garlands and vows to the temple, but wearily pining

Gaze over island and bay for the sails of the sunken; they heedless

Sleep in soft bosoms for ever, and dream of the surge and the sea-maids.

Onward they past in their joy; on their brows neither

sorrow nor anger;

Self-sufficing, as gods, never heeding the woe of the maiden.

She would have shrieked for their mercy: but shame made her dumb; and their eyeballs

Stared on her careless and still, like the eyes in the house of the idols.

Seeing they saw not, and passed, like a dream, on the murmuring ripple.

Andromeda grows hopeless at their merciless indifference, and suffers from a storm which precedes sunrise. The sunrise itself is magnificently described, and the lines which follow are among the best in the poem:

Then on the ridge of the hills rose the broad bright sun in his glory,

Hurling his arrows abroad on the glittering crests of the surges,

Gilding the soft round bosoms of wood, and the downs of the coastland,

Gilding the weeds at her feet, and the foam-laced teeth

of the ledges,

Showing the maiden her home through the veil of her locks, as they floated

Glistening, damp with the spray, in a long black cloud to the landward.

High in the far-off glens rose thin blue curls from the homesteads;

Softly the low of the herds, and the pipe of the outgoing herdsman,

Slid to her ear on the water, and melted her heart into weeping.

Shuddering, she tried to forget them; and straining her eyes to the seaward, Watched for her doom, as she wailed, but in vain, to the terrible Sun-god.

While Andromeda reproaches the sun, that smiles on her fate, Perseus appears before her :Sudden she ceased, with a shriek: in the spray, like a hovering foam-bow,

Hung, more fair than the foam-bow, a boy in the bloom of his manhood,

Golden-haired, ivory-limbed, ambrosial; over his shoulder

Ilung for a veil of his beauty the gold-fringed folds of the goat-skin,

Bearing the brass of his shield, as the sun flashed clear on its clearness.

Curved on his thigh lay a falchion; and under the gleam of his helmet

Eyes more blue than the main shone awful, around him Athené

Shed in her love such grace, such state, and terrible daring.

As in Ovid, the maiden is dumb with fear and amazement, and only answers the inquiries of Perseus by tears. He, on his side, explains how, "thirsting for honour and toil," he had been divinely led to the rock where she was chained, and swears to deliver her and make her his wife

Beautiful, eager, he wooed her, and kissed off her tears as he hovered,

Roving at will as a bee, on the brows of a rock nymphhaunted,

Garlanded over with vine, and acanthus, and clambering roses,

Cool in the fierce still noon, where streams glance clear in the mossbeds,

Hums on from blossom to blossom, and mingles the sweets as he tastes them. Beautiful, eager, he kissed her, and clasped her yet closer and closer.

She grows tamer, "like a colt that submits to the will of his master," and Perseus, having cut her chains with his sword of diamond, the monster is seen approaching. Andromeda implores him not to sacrifice his own life for her, but he reassures her by describing all the exploits he has already performed, and his reliance on the help of Pallas Athené. He does not make use of his sword, but turns the monster

to stone as soon as he approaches, by means of the head of Medusa, which forms part of his supernatural equipment, Aphrodite, who sees him rewarded-as heroes are who deliver beautiful maidens

"brimful of love she caressed him, Answering lip with lip”—

boasts to Athené of the dereliction of her pupil, who is "dreaming no longer of honour and danger;" but Athené replies that the "wedlock of heroes" is dear to her no less than to the goddess of love, and that wife and children are incentives to them of noble deeds both in camp and council. In token of her approvalThen from her gold-strung loom, where she wrought in her chamber of cedar,

Awful and fair she arose; and she went by the glens of Olympus.

She plaits the tresses of Andromeda, and decks her with jewels, "armlet, and anklet, and earbell," and with a necklace which Hephaistos [Vulcan] had made in the forges of Etna, of "the flower of the gold and brass of the mountain."

Then on the brows of the maiden a veil bound Pallas Athené;

Ample it fell to her feet, deep-fringed, a wonder of weaving.

Ages and ages agone it was wrought on the heights of Olympus,

Wrought in the gold-strung loom, by the finger of cunning Athené.

In it she wove all creatures that teem in the womb of the ocean;

Nereid, siren, and triton, and dolphin, and arrowy fishes,

Glittering round, many-hued, on the flame-red folds of the mantle.

In it she wove, too, a town where grey-haired kings sat in judgment;

Sceptre in hand in the market they sat, doing right by the people,

Wise: while above watched Justice, and near, farseeing Apollo.

Round it she wove for a fringe all herbs of the earth and the water,

Violet, asphodel, ivy, and vine-leaves, roses and lilies, Coral and sea-fan, and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the ocean:

Now from Olympus she bore it, a dower to the bride of a hero.

Over the limbs of the damsel she wrapt it; the maid still trembled,

Shading her face with her hands; for the eyes of the goddess were awful.

She promises that Perseus and Andromeda shall be the progenitors of a godlike race, and shall, at their death, be translated to heaven as constellations; and returns to "chant of order and foresight in the halls of Olympus."

Mr. Kingsley's version of the story differs from that of Ovid in several particulars. In the ancient poet the action is hurried, and Persius only comes just in time to save the maiden. Being made acquainted with the

situation of affairs, he exacts a promise that Andromeda shall be his wife, before flying off to save her. Mr. Kingsley has shown refinement in avoiding this bargain, and perhaps judgment in suspending the interest, by explanations between Andromeda and her deliverer, which occupy them till the monster appears. In the way in which he is killed Mr. Kingsley has not, we think, improved upon the older authority. Ovid describes Perseus as swooping down upon the beast, like a bird of prey on his quarry, and slaying him by repeated thrusts with his sword, while the animal resists, and dyes the water with his blood. But Mr. Kingsley's hero gets over the difficulty in a much quicker fashion, by bringing the Medusa's head into play, which gives him an easy and instantaneous victory. But Mr. Kingsley adopts Ovid's simile, and a certain inappropiate Less is the result. Though there is a similarity between an eagle driving his beak into a dolphin, and a man driving his sword into a monster, there is none between the former act and that of presenting the petrific visage to its victim.

Ovid narrates the destruction of the monster at the beginning of the story, as soon, in fact, as it can be brought about; there is no time to inquire into Perseus's antecedents, and his assistance is accepted at once. Thus his adventures are reserved for a later period, when at the bridal banquet, which takes place immediately on the return of the party from the shore, the guests have full liberty to satisfy their curiosity respecting the hero who has so opportunely arrived. There is something, perhaps, more classical about this way of telling the story than that of Mr. Kingsley, who, in fact, leaves the lovers on the rock at the conclusion of his poem. This vagueness in modern times it would be prosaic to question; but the more literal genius of ancient poetry would probably have required to see the lovers safe and sound at home, and rejoicing with their friends. We cannot of course tell how far Mr. Kingsley may have intended to imitate the ancients; if

he has meant to do so throughout, this perhaps is a slight violation of costume. However, the poem is as a whole beautiful, and full of pictures. It is well sustained throughout, and the passages we have extracted are but little above the general level. All is pervaded by an atmosphere of grace and harmony, which shows that the author is as much at home in purely picturesque and ideal subjects, as in those which are leavened by a more distinct element of modern or personal feeling.

The remaining poems, of which we have no space to speak at length, fall into three classes "Early Poems," "Poems relating to 1848," and "Ballads and Songs." Of the former, we prefer "Palinodia" to any other. It will remind most readers of Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," but is governed by a different "motive." With the exception of "The Bad Squire" (originally in Yeast), the political songs are the weakest part of the volume, and we are glad to say they form the smallest part. Of the longer pieces, "Saint Maura" is the most considerable, and probably the best. It is the monologue of a Christian lady suffering martyrdom by crucifixion, addressed to her husband, also crucified with her. It has all the author's deep religious fervour, as well as pathetic human feeling, but it would suffer by being extracted piecemeal. "The Three Fishers" and "The Sands of Dee" are well known. The following, with which we will conclude, is perfect in its way, and is a good specimen of the clear completeness which is one of the general characteristics of these poems, and of the lightness of touch which is one of their principal charms :—

A FAREWELL.

My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey : Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long; And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song.

CARDINAL MAZARIN has, heretofore, been known only to the world as one of the most distinguished statesmen of France; but he was a very remarkable uncle as well. Indeed, no uncle who ever lived had a more profound sentiment of the

solemn duties of uncleship. The government of a great and restless nation like that confided to him, would have been a sufficient reason for any ordinary statesman-uncle to give himself little, if any, trouble with nephews and nieces;

but Mazarin had not fewer than ten of his conveyed to him in Paris, and, in spite of his labours and anxieties, he watched over them with exemplary care. An ordinary uncle, in his position, would have thought that he had done all that duty commanded, if he had becomingly married and provided for his nieces and nephews; but he gave the sole nephew that survived him a prodigious fortune, and procured for the nieces marriages of which the highest in the land, and even princesses of the blood, would have been proud. In very truth he was the model of an uncle; and, as Shakspeare could find nothing nobler to say of Cæsar than that "he was a man," so, if we separate Mazarin from his statesmanship, and regard him simply as an individual, it would be difficult to inscribe a more fitting epitaph on his tomb than that "he was an uncle."

But if he were an extraordinary uncle, not less extraordinary were his nephews and nieces. The brilliant promise of two nephews, and the strange character of another-the beauty, grace, and talents of the girls-the splendid marriages of all, and the eventful careers of some of them -are such as were never before united in any family, as have never been seen in any one family since, and will certainly never be seen in any one again.

It is of these nephews and nieces that the book before us treats. Its title is not altogether exact; but it is justified by the fact, that there were not fewer than seven nieces, and only three nephews; and that the lives and adventures of the former were more chequered than those of the latter, and require greater space to detail. It is singular that hitherto these people should not have obtained the attention they deserve at the hands of literary men. Related simply and plainly, their lives would have formed a valuable addition to biography. The adventures of some of them would have worked up admirably in novel or play. Cast amongst the princes, statesmen, and warriors of France, their lot would not have been unworthy the study of historians. One or two of them even acted such an important part in court, which were then public affairs, that history cannot ignore them. But the neglect with which they have been treated has had the advantage of procuring us the book of M. Rénée-a book which unites the three several excellences of biographical exactness, historical verity, and romantic charm-which instructs and amuses- -which narrates with clearness, judges with sagacity, discusses with animation, and displays much literary art, and not a little grace of style.

Mazarin had been five years Prime Minister of France, before he thought of gathering around

him his nephews and nieces-children of his two sisters, the Signoras Martinozzi and Mancini, who lived at Rome. At first he had three pieces and two nephews sent to him; five years after he had three other nieces and a nephew sent; and, at a later period, another niece and another nephew. The arrival of the nieces, especially of the first batch, created great sensation in Paris, and drew forth a number of sarcastic and scurrilous songs and poems from his political enemies. He made no attempt to silence his adversaries, but had the girls lodged and treated as if they had been princesses. No father could have shown more concern for them than he did. He gave them the best education of the time, and laboured to instil into them principles of religion and virtue. When absent from Paris, he wrote letter on letter to their governesses, to the girls themselves, and sometimes even to the Queen of France scolding them for petty faults, exhorting them to pay attention to their religious duties; and giving directions as to the personages they were to visit, the amusements in which they were to indulge, and the ladies to whom they were to look up as "guides, philosophers, and friends.” Some of the letters to the nieces themselves are playful; some thank them for having written him epistles full of childish gossip; one laments, with grave facetiousness, that he was unable to answer in verse a poetical missive sent by one of them; and others complain testily that,. though he was "overwhelmed with business of state," their conduct plagued him sadly, and prevented him from enjoying that peace and consolation in his family which he had a right to expect.

Of his nephews one, a fine young man, was killed in a combat in the Faubourg St. Antoine at Paris. Another, when twelve years of age, was (from, it is believed, hostility to Mazarin) tossed in a blanket by his schoolfellows of the Jesuits' college, and, falling to the ground, was killed. He was a little prodigy of learning and intelligence, and the cardinal, who loved him much, was, in spite of his extreme youth, thinking of having him present when he discussed affairs of state, in order to prepare him betimes for the art of governing. The third nephew was a fantastic, crack-brained sort of fellow; and Mazarin had little esteem for him. Nevertheless he made him Duke de Nevers, and gave him large estates both in France and Italy; he also, at his death, left him part of his palace at Paris, of his pictures and statues, and of his fortune. This Duke de Nevers was a poet-at least he scribbled verses, not only in French, but in Italian; but though they were admired at the time, they are considered sad stuff now; still they are interesting from the fact that for