’Mid France’s miracles of art,
      Rare trophies won from art’s own land,
   I’ve lived to see with burning heart
      The fog-bred poor triumphant stand,

reproduces very inadequately the charm of the original: 

   Dans nos palais, ou, pres de la victoire,
   Brillaient les arts, doux fruits des beaux climats,
   J’ai vu du Nord les peuplades sans gloire,
   De leurs manteaux secouer les frimas.

On the whole, however, Mr. Toynbee’s work is good; Les Champs, for example, is very well translated, and so are the two delightful poems Rosette and Ma Republique; and there is a good deal of spirit in Le Marquis de Carabas: 

   Whom have we here in conqueror’s role? 
   Our grand old Marquis, bless his soul! 
   Whose grand old charger (mark his bone!)
   Has borne him back to claim his own. 
   Note, if you please, the grand old style
   In which he nears his grand old pile;
   With what an air of grand old state
   He waves that blade immaculate! 
      Hats off, hats off, for my lord to pass,
      The grand old Marquis of Carabas!—­

though ‘that blade immaculate’ has hardly got the sting of ’un sabre innocent’; and in the fourth verse of the same poem, ’Marquise, you’ll have the bed-chamber’ does not very clearly convey the sense of the line ‘La Marquise a le tabouret.’  The best translation in the book is The Court Suit (L’Habit de Cour), and if Mr. Toynbee will give us some more work as clever as this we shall be glad to see a second volume from his pen.  Beranger is not nearly well enough known in England, and though it is always better to read a poet in the original, still translations have their value as echoes have their music.

A Selection from the Songs of De Beranger in English Verse.  By William Toynbee. (Kegan Paul.)

THE POETRY OF THE PEOPLE

(Pall Mall Gazette, May 13, 1886.)

The Countess Martinengo deserves well of all poets, peasants and publishers.  Folklore is so often treated nowadays merely from the point of view of the comparative mythologist, that it is really delightful to come across a book that deals with the subject simply as literature.  For the Folk-tale is the father of all fiction as the Folk-song is the mother of all poetry; and in the games, the tales and the ballads of primitive people it is easy to see the germs of such perfected forms of art as the drama, the novel and the epic.  It is, of course, true that the highest expression of life is to be found not in the popular songs, however poetical, of any nation, but in the great masterpieces of self-conscious Art; yet it is pleasant sometimes to leave the summit of Parnassus to look at the wild-flowers in the valley, and to turn from the lyre of Apollo to listen to the reed of Pan.  We can still listen to it.  To this day, the vineyard dressers of Calabria will