Beranger's Poems. In the Versions of the Best Translators. Selected
by William S. Walsh. (W. H. Allen and Co.)—This volume comes from the other side of the Atlantic, and gives a selection of some of the best work that has been done in trans- lating the great French song-writer, both here and in America. There are fifty-four poems in all. Seventeen of the versions are not ascribed. Are we right in supposing that they are the work of the editor F Fifteen come from the pen of Robert Brough, and eight from that of Dr. Magi= ; two are by Thackeray. The other names of translators are not known to us. They are very curious and interesting reading, for there never was any man more thoroughly French than Wronger. " The Little Red Man " (it is translated here by Brough) is a poem to which some stanzas might have been added since the poet's time, —possibly another addition may be about to become due as we write. It begins:— "Wish I may never move,
If I haven't done duty as charwoman here, Forty years above,
In the Tuileries Palace, year on year, When—for my sins, no doubt—
Often I've been pat out,
In the nook where I snooze whenever I can, By a visit at night from the Little Red Mau.
Just imagine, my dears, A little lame devil all dressed in red ; A bump right up to his ears ;
A horrible squint and a carroty head ;
A nose all crooked and long;
A foot with a double prong ;
And a voice—Lord save us ! whenever it croaks, It's a notice to quit to the Tuileries folks."
The last stanza runs :-
" Now listen, my dears, and try
To keep it a secret, if keep you can; The last three nights gene by Three visits I've had from the Little Red Man !
Laughing and rubbing his palms, Singing Cathedral psalms ; He touches the earth with forehead and nose, Thcn puts on a Jesuit hat and goes."
This was before the Revolution of July. He has paid a good many visits since then. There are eight illustrations on steel, which seem to belong to a past generation.
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