No blessing has followed the wars and conquests in Europe, but in the Great West, conquered by labor and enterprise, all is progress and unexampled prosperity." There are numerous other passages tempting us to translate them, but our space is already exhausted, and we forbear. * * * * * We have already taken occasion to commend the _Tausend und ein Tag im Orient_ (Thousand and One Days in the East) by BODENSTEDT, the well-known author of the Wars of the Circassians. No writer gives so just an insight into the character of that portion of the great Oriental family which he visited--the Circassians and Georgians. The second part of his present book (lately published at Berlin) contains some interesting criticisms of a Tartar poet, whom Bodenstedt knew at Tiflis, upon European poetry. Our traveller, partly by way of practice in the Tartar language, and partly to inspire his eastern friend with greater respect for the bards of the Occident, used to translate English and German songs into Tartar. Mirza Shaffy, the name of the Tartar sage and poet, proved himself no contemptible critic of these foreign productions. Not once could he be induced to tolerate a poem whose only merit was the beauty and melody of its language in the original, nor to swallow the mere sentimentalism which plays so great a part in German poetry especially. This sentimentalism, says Bodenstedt, is as unknown as it is unintelligible to the Oriental poet. He aims always at a real and tangible object, and in gaining it puts heaven and earth in motion. No image is too remote, no thought too lofty for his purpose. The new moon is a golden shoe for the hoof of his heroes' steed. The stars are golden nails, with which the Lord has fastened the sky, lest it should fall with admiration and desire for his fair one. The cypresses and cedars grow only to recall the lithe and graceful form of Selma. The weeping willow droops her green hair to the water, grieving because she is not slender like Selma. The eyes of his beloved are suns which make all the faithful fire-worshippers. The sun itself is but a gleaming lyre, whose beams are golden strings, whence the dawn draws the loveliest accords to the praise of the earth's beauty and the power of love. Mirza Shaffy was a great lover of Moore and Byron, and some of their songs which were translated needed no explanation to render them intelligible to him. Wolfe's marvellous poem on the death of Sir John Moore made a deep impression on him, and was a special favorite. Goethe and Heine he liked greatly, especially Goethe's song of Mignon, "Knowst thou the Land," and Heine's Fisher's Song (which Schubert has set to such delicious and befitting music) which ends-- "My heart is like the ocean, Has storm, and ebb, and flow, And many a lovely pearlet Rests in its depths below."