pared no farther; ex uno omnes. Now and then Mr. Peabody gives us a note of his own. In the First Canto, for instance, he explains the allegorical greyhound as "A looked for reformer. 'The Coming Man.’" The appropriateness and elegance of which commentary will be manifest to all readers familiar with the allusion. In the Fourth Canto, where Virgil speaks of the condition of the souls in limbo, our professed translator says: "Dante says this in bitter irony. He ill brooks the narrow bigotry of the Church," etc. etc., showing an utter ignorance of Dante’s real adherence to the doctrine of the Church. He has here read Dr. Carlyle’s note with less attention than usual; for a quotation contained in it from the "De Monarchiâ" would have set him right. The quotation is, however, in Latin, and though Mr. Peabody has transferred many quotations from the "Æneid" (through Dr. Carlyle) to his own notes, they are often so printed as not to impress one with a strong sense of his familiarity with the Latin language. We give one instance for the sake of illustration. On page 40 appear the following lines:—
Terribili squarlore Charon cui plurima mento
Canities inculta jucet; staut lumina flamina.
Nor is he happier in his quotations from Italian, or in his other displays of learning. Having occasion to quote one of Dante's most familiar lines, he gives it in this way:—
Lasciatte ogni speranzi, voi ch'entrate.
Anacreon is with him "Anachreon"; Vallombrosa is "Vallambroso"; Aristotelian is "Aristotleian." Five times (all the instances in which the name occurs) the Ghibelline appears as the "Ghiberlines"; and Montaperti is transformed into "Montapesti."
Nor is J. C. Peabody's poetic capacity superior to his honesty or his learning; witness such lines as these;—
"My parents natives of Lombardy were."
"They'll come to blood and then the savage party."
"Like as at Palo near the Quarnāro."
"I am not Æneas; I am not Paul."
We have exhibited sufficiently the merits of what its author declares to be "perhaps a better translation" than any other. He says that "the whole Divine Comedy of which these ten cantos are a specimen will appear in due time." If the specimen be a fair one, the translation of the "Purgatory" and the "Paradise" will not appear until after the publication of Dr. Carlyle's prose version, for which we may yet have to wait some time.
We are confident that so honorable a publishing house as that of Messrs. Ticknor and Fields must have been unaware of the character of a book so full of false pretences, when they allowed their name to be put on the title-page. But to make up for even unconscious participation in such a literary imposition, we trust that they will soon put to press the remainder of Dr. Parsons’s excellent translation of Dante’s poem, a specimen of which appeared so long since, bearing their imprint.
City Poems. By Alexander Smith Author of "A Life Drama, and other Poems." Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
On the first appearance of Alexander Smith, criticism became light-headed, and fairly exhausted its whole vocabulary of panegyric in giving him welcome. "There is not a page in this volume on which we cannot find some novel image, some Shakspearian felicity of expression, or some striking simile," said the critic of the "Westminster Review." "Having read these extracts," said another exponent of public opinion, "turn to any poet you will, and compare the texture of the composition,—it is a severe test, but you will find that Alexander Smith bears it well." It was observable, however, that all this praise was lavished on what were styled "beauties." Passages and single lines, bricks from the edifice, were extravagantly eulogized; but on turning to the poems, it was found that the poetical lines and passages were not parts of a whole, that the bricks formed no edifice at all. There were no indications of creative genius, no shaping or constructive power, no substance and fibre of individuality, no signs of a great poetical nature, but a splendid anarchy of sensations and faculties. The separate beauties, as the author had heaped and huddled them together, presented a total result of defor-
