“Didst thou not praise me, Gaultier, at the ball— Rare lips, trim boddice, and a waist so small, With clipsome lightness, dwindling ever less, Beneath the robe of pea-y greeniness? Dost thou remember, when with stately prance, Our heads went crosswise in the country-dance; How soft, warm fingers, tipped like buds of balm Trembled within the squeezing of thy palm; And how a cheek grew flushed and peachy-wise, At the frank lifting of thy cordial eyes? Ah, me! that night there was one gentle thing, Who, like a dove, with its scarce-feathered wing, Flattered at the approach of thy quaint swaggering! “There’s wont to be, at conscious times like these, An affectation of a bright-eyed ease— A crispy-cheekiness, if so I dare Describe the swaling of a jaunty air; And thus when swirling from the waltz’s wheel You craved my hand to grace the next quadrille, That smiling voice, although it made me start, Boiled in the meek o’erlifting of my heart; And, picking at my flowers, I said with free And usual tone, ‘Oh, yes sir, certainly!’” The Duke of Wellington is known as the “iron” duke, and Gaultier gives us a “Sonnet to Britain” by him, which justifies the title. It is one of the most original things in the volume, and very worthily concludes it: “Halt! Shoulder arms! Recover! As you were! Right wheel! Eyes left! Attention! Stand at ease! O Britain! O my country! Words like these Have made thy name a terror and a fear To all the nations. Witness Ebro’s banks, Assaye, Toulouse, Nivelle and Waterloo, Where the grim despot muttered—_Sauve qui peut!_ And Ney fled darkling. Silence in the ranks! Inspired by thee, amidst the iron crash Of armies in the centre of his troop The soldier stands—unmovable, not rash— Until the forces of the foeman droop; Then knocks the Frenchman to eternal smash, Pounding them into mummy. Shoulder, hoop!” We commend this volume very cordially to our readers as one of the best things of the kind in English literature. It appears to us better even than the Rejected Addresses, in the richness and breadth of its humor, and in the poetry of its mirth. Whoever may be the author, it is evidently the production of one capable of writing excellent serious poetry of his own, as well as parodying that of his contemporaries. * * * * * _Pynnshurst, his Travels and Ways of Thinking. Charles Scribner. New York._