l Mall Gazette, April 21, 1886.)

A philosophic politician once remarked that the best possible form of
government is an absolute monarchy tempered by street ballads. Without
at all agreeing with this aphorism we still cannot but regret that the
new democracy does not use poetry as a means for the expression of
political opinion. The Socialists, it is true, have been heard singing
the later poems of Mr. William Morris, but the street ballad is really
dead in England. The fact is that most modern poetry is so artificial in
its form, so individual in its essence and so literary in its style, that
the people as a body are little moved by it, and when they have
grievances against the capitalist or the aristocrat they prefer strikes
to sonnets and rioting to rondels.

Possibly, Mr. William Toynbee's pleasant little volume of translations
from Beranger may be the herald of a new school. Beranger had all the
qualifications for a popular poet. He wrote to be sung more than to be
read; he preferred the Pont Neuf to Parnassus; he was patriotic as well
as romantic, and humorous as well as humane. Translations of poetry as a
rule are merely misrepresentations, but the muse of Beranger is so simple
and naive that she can wear our English dress with ease and grace, and
Mr. Toynbee has kept much of the mirth and music of the original. Here
and there, undoubtedly, the translation could be improved upon; 'rapiers'
for instance is an abominable rhyme to 'forefathers'; 'the hated arms of
Albion' in the same poem is a very feeble rendering of 'le leopard de
l'Anglais,' and such a verse as

'Mid France's miracles of art,
Rare trophies won from art's own land,
I've lived to see with burning heart
The fog-bred poor triumphant stand,

reproduces very inadequately the charm of the original:

Dans nos palais, ou, pres de la victoire,
Brillaient les arts, doux fruits des beaux climats,
J'ai vu du Nord les peuplades sans gloire,
De leurs manteaux secouer les frimas.

On the whole, however, Mr. Toynbee's work is good; Les Champs, for
example, is very well translated, and so are the two delightful poems
Rosette and Ma Republique; and there is a good deal of spirit in Le
Marquis de Carabas:

Whom have we here in conqueror's role?
Our grand old Marquis, bless his soul!
Whose grand old charger (mark his bone!)
Has borne him back to claim his own.
Note, if you please, the grand old style