At court, the humor of a king Is always voted “quite the thing;” Morals and cloaks are loose or laced According to the sovereign’s taste, And belles and bouquets both are dressed Just as his majesty thinks best. Of course, in that delightful age, When Richard ruled the roast, Cracking of craniums was the rage, And beauty was the toast. Ay! all was laugh, and life, and love; And lips and shrines were kissed; And vows were ventured in the grove, And lances in the list; And boys roamed out in sunny weather To weave a wreath and rhyme together: While dames, in silence and in satin, Lay listening to the soft French-Latin, And flung their sashes and their sighs From odor-breathing balconies. * * * * * _The Howadji in Syria. By George William Curtis. Author of “Nile Notes.” New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._ Mr. Curtis has the finest genius for description among the myriad tourists of the day. His observation is clear, accurate and comprehensive, and the picture formed on his own imagination he can transfer to the imagination of the reader without the omission of a single detail. But he also has the poetic faculty of seeing not only the external form and colors of objects, but their inward spirit and meaning; and this makes his pictures alive with thought and feeling, and constitutes their peculiar attractiveness. The reader is literally transported; his eye falls on the page, and at once he is in Cairo or Jerusalem, not only seeing those places, but experiencing the pure and perfect luxury of the feelings they awaken in an imaginative mind. It is this magical power which places Mr. Curtis above all contemporary writers of travels. He has really caught the spirit of the east. Some London critics have objected to his book on account of its characteristic excellence, they being pleased to call his felicity and sureness of insight by the name of idealization, using the word to convey a charge of misrepresentation. We believe that he daguerreotypes both forms and emotions, and is equally true to fact and thought. His faculty of external observation is none the less accurate, because he has in addition the genius which most travelers lack.