LES DERNIERES LUEURS D'UN FLAMBEAU QUI S'ÉTEINT

1 vol. 513^>p. Prix une guinée. Rolandi libraire, No, 20 Berners Street, London, W.

Walter Savage Landor entitled his final contribution to literature the " Last Fruit off an Old Tree," and the gathering had ail the mellowness and richness, if somewhat of the pleasant sharpness, of a late autumn fruitage. The Chevalier de Châtelain, with characteristic modesty, désignâtes the later products of his rich and vigorous fancy, the '; Last Flickerings of an Expiring Torch." We demur to this too depreciatory title. It by no means rightly describes the collection of scholarly French renderings and graceful original poems contained in the handsome little volume now before us. There are no marks of senility hère, but rather indications on every page of a buoyant and riant intellect, on the possession of which any living author under forty might reasonably be complimented. Does it savour of a decaying imagination to throw off élégant translations from almost ail the languages of Europe, from English round to Russian and Servian ? Or are poetical versions such as the vétéran Victor Hugo, or his lamented son François, would not

have disclaimed, merely scintillations from an ail but~extinguished torch ? We trow not. But genius is apt to undervalue even its best work, and therefore the Chevalier's most inappropriate title must even be allowed to pass. Everything must be conceded to an author wlio prints on the title-page of his book that it is published on the seventy-third anniversary of his birthday. How many men out of a million are capable of making poetical translations from any language at such an âge ?

In a prefatory poem the author gives a summary of his career, beginning with his birth in 1801, and faithfully narrating his various literary adventures. A happy marriage, the silver anniversary of which was celebrated a few years ago, has (he states) far more than compensated for ail the ills which fickle fortune and political enemies have inflicted on him. True to the last the Chevalier dedicates this volume to Madame de Châtelain, in those terms of chivalrous and tender delicacy which the French people can express in their facile language so much better than the English can in their ruder Anglo-Saxon tongue.

As a slight spécimen of the fine taste which marks the poems in the volume, we shall attempt a translation of an epigram written on the beautiful banks of Lake Windermere : —