REVIEWS. 49 5 



The predestined impersonation of the " Blameless Prince " is not 

 to work alone in the fulfilment of his high aims : 



" She whom his heart had won, 

 With loving aid, shall ever at his side 

 (Till death them part) sustain him in his thought. 

 And these two, nobly mated, each to each 

 The sweet and ripe completion, shall be named 

 With loyal love and tenderest respect 

 By knight and lady, poet, sage and priest, 

 lu mart and camp, in palace and in cot, 

 By babbling grey-beard and by lisping child. 

 Wherever British banner is unfarled." 



Success is to crown the joint efforts of queen and prince : 



" So shall the land grow strong with bonds of peace. 



Till men believe that wars have ceased to drench 



The earth with bloody rain ; and Art shall smile 



On myriad shapes of beauty and of use. 



And Wisdom shall have freer scope, and push ^ 



The boulders of old Folly from her field ; 



And men shall walk with larger minds across 



The limits of the superstitious past, 



And cull the gold out of the dross of things, 



Flinging the dross aside ; and then shall be 



New hopes of better changes yet to be, 



When harmony shall reign through all the world. 



And interchange of good for common weal 



Be only law." 



Our space forbids more specimens of the quality of the "Prophecy 

 of Merlin." It must suffice to say that in the vision of supposed 

 future events, the memorable Exposition of 1852, the wars that 

 speedily followed, and the death that subsequently spread such gloom 

 over the Empire, are all sketched with gracefulness and skill; though 

 the reader can scarcely fail to recall, and perhaps to contrast in danger- 

 ous parallel with the latter, the exquisite dedication of "The Idyls" 

 to our widowed Queen : 



" Her, over all whose realms, to their last isle, 

 Commingled with the gloom of imminent war. 

 The shadow of his loss moved like eclipse. 

 Darkening; the world." 



