We commend this pleasant volume to all readers who desire a cosy companion, full of wit, and anecdote, and information, and stimulating just as much thought as the brain can comfortably bear in the hot summer months. * * * * * _The Napoleon Ballads. By Bon Gaultier. The Poetical Works of Louis Napoleon. Now first Translated into English. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 18mo._ The idea of this volume is capital, but it is wretchedly carried out. The name of Bon Gaultier, a name associated with wit that “sparkles like salt in fire,” raises anticipations doomed to be dismally disappointed. If written by him, he must have been muddy with beer during the hours of composition; but we presume that the English publisher had as little right to put his name to the volume as translator as he had to put that of Louis Napoleon as the author. One of the few good things in the collection is the Decree which prefaces it. It runs thus: “Louis Napoleon: _Prince President of the Republic._ “_Art._ 1. Considering—that it is good for the people to read good poetry: “_Art._ 2. Considering that few people can write it; “_Art._ 3. Considering that he is one of the few, the Prince President has written the following work. Respecting which “It is Decreed—That any person within France found without a copy, warranted to have been duly paid for, shall be liable to summary trial and deportation, with the confiscation of all his goods and chattels. “Done at the Elysée, this first of April. “Louis Napoleon. “Countersigned, “De Maupas.” This is about as reasonable as many of the President’s decrees; for a tyranny like Louis Napoleon’s defies the powers of the coarsest caricature to reach the depth of its unnatural absurdities. From the mass of trash which composes the volume, we extract the following clever parody of Tennyson’s “In Memorium:” “IN MEMORIUM. JUDÆ ISCARIOTTI. _Obit A. D. 1._ (“The touching piety which has induced the Prince to devote a leisure hour or two to the memory of this remarkable man needs no praise of ours. _Translator._) “’Tis well—’tis something—we can’t stand Where Judas in the earth was laid, But from his pattern may be made Our conduct to our native land. “He joined the high-priests—so do I; He took the money—it is true; He was a very noble Do, And planned his treasons on the sly. “He hung himself on gallows tree— He gently swung in Potter’s Field, And blessed crop that spot must yield Of gracious memories to me.