19 NOVEMBER 1870, Page 24

Fairy Life and Fairy Land. A Poem. (Booth.) — Why

Titania should communicate "through her secretary, Thomas of Ercildoune," description of Portuguese scenery, in the first place, and disquisitions on "Natural History, Physics, Biography, Metaphysics, Psychology, Magne- tism, Theology, the belief in the Supernatural, Fez.," in the second, is more than we can conjecture. "True Thomas," who, though there is little loft to judge by, is said to have been a poet, must be terribly bored by his office. Her fairy Majesty's verse, though not steady in rhythm, is fluent enough, but tedious and purposeless. Keats calls fairyland "for- lorn," one of his most pregnant epithets, to which this book gives fresh significance. Happy the nations whose Sovereigns, if they will write, write prose.