CURRENT LITERATURE..
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Moron's Miniature Poets. A selection from the works of Alfred Tennyson. (Edward Moron and Co., Dover Street, 1865.)--This is a well-selected and beautifully got up little volume. With a few excep- tions it contains all the best of Tennyson's shorter poems—one or two are, we believe, quite new ; the latter, however, are not of his best, "The Captain" and "Three Sonnets to a Coquette " we do not remember to have seen before. They are not in his happiest manner, the sonnets especially being full of quaint conceits and prettinesses scarcely worthy of our great poet. The book as a whole is, however, a charming selec- tion ; but why exclude our new friend "The Northern Farmer 2" Surely no collection of Tennyson's shorter pieces can be perfect without him. Lilia's song from "The Princess " is curiously altered (we conclude by Mr. Tennyson himself), but certainly not for the better. The lines in this volume are halting, and in the second verse the idea is lost. We give the two in contrast:— Tim Prinwass. THE &memos.
In the old version it is the vision of his little ones about their mother's knee which inspires the warrior's charge. In the second the mother is only requested to call her little ones about her knee at the moment the father is charging, which does not seem to mean much. A good portrait of Tennyson embellishes the selection, which is altogether one of the finest and best that we have seen. " Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands, Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands.
"A moment while the trumpets blow, He sees his brood about thy knee, The next like fire he meets his foe, And strikes him doad for thine and thee." "Lady, let the rolling drams Beat to battle where thy warrior stands, Now thy face across his fancy
COMB,
And gives the battle to his hands.
" Lady, let the trumpets blow, Clasp thy little babes about thy knee, Now their warrior father meets the foe, And strikes him dead for thine and thee."
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