which is apt to characterize men who are both poets and wits—who see things at once in their ideal and conventional relations, and are fascinated by both. The observing reader will also detect, as a result of this, a certain fine misanthropy in the poems, but a misanthropy which is without malice or hatred. His description of the Troubadour, in his delicious poem of that name, may stand in some degree for his own portrait: A wandering troubadour was he; He bore a name of high degree, And learned betimes to slay and sue, As knights of high degree should do. While vigor nerved his buoyant arm, And youth was his to cheat and charm; Being immensely fond of dancing, And somewhat given to romancing, He roamed about through towers and towns, Apostrophizing smiles and frowns, Singing sweet staves to beads and bonnets, And dying, day by day, in sonnets. Flippant and fair, and fool enough, And careless where he met rebuff, Poco-curante in all cases Of furious foes, or pretty faces, With laughing lip, and jocund eye, And studied tear and practiced sigh, And ready sword, and ready verse, And store of ducats in his purse, He sinned few crimes, loved many times, And wrote a hundred thousand rhymes! Among the best among the many good things in this volume is “The Belle of the Ball,” “The Vicar,” “The Legend of the Teuful-Haus,” “The Bridal of Belmont,” and “The Red Fisherman.” We have but space for a description of Richard Cœur de Lion—a fair specimen of Praed’s dashing manner: A ponderous thing was Richard’s can, And so was Richard’s boot, And Saracens and liquor ran, Where’er he set his foot. So fiddling here, and fighting there, And murdering time and tune, With sturdy limb, and listless air, And gauntleted hand, and jeweled hair, Half monarch, half buffoon, He turned away from feast to fray, From quarreling to quaffing, So great in prowess and in pranks, So fierce and funny in the ranks, That Saladin and Soldan said, Where’er that mad-cap Richard led, Alla! he held his breath for dread, And burst his sides for laughing!