s, an' ez hard in the mouth,
An' they allus hev showed a mean spite to the South.
Sech bein' the case, we hed best look about
For some kin' o' way to slip _our_ necks out:
Le''s vote our las' dollar, ef one can be found,
(An', at any rate, votin' it hez a good sound,)--
Le''s swear thet to arms all our people is flyin',
(The critters can't read, an' wun't know how we're lyin',)--
Thet Toombs is advancin' to sack Cincinnater,
With a rovin' commission to pillage an' slarter,--
Thet we've throwed to the winds all regard for wut's lawfle,
An' gone in for sunthin' promiscu'sly awfle.
Ye see, hitherto, it's our own knaves an' fools
Thet we've used,--those for whetstones, an't' others ez tools,--
An' now our las' chance is in puttin' to test
The same kin' o' cattle up North an' out West.
I----But, Gennlemen, here's a despatch jes' come in
Which shows thet the tide's begun turnin' agin,--
Gret Cornfedrit success! C'lumbus eevacooated!
I mus' run down an' hev the thing properly stated,
An' show wut a triumph it is, an' how lucky
To fin'lly git red o' thet cussed Kentucky,--
An' how, sence Fort Donelson, winnin' the day
Consists in triumphantly gittin' away.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_The Sisters, Inisfail, and other Poems._ By AUBREY DE VERE. London.

Whatever Mr. De Vere writes is welcomed by a select audience. Not taking
rank among the great masters of English poetry, he yet possesses a
genuine poetic faculty which distinguishes him from "the small harpers
with their glees" who counterfeit the true gift of Nature. In refined
and delicate sensibility, in purity of feeling, in elevation of tone,
there is no English writer of verse at the present day who surpasses
him. The fine instinct of a poet is united in him with the cultivated
taste of a scholar. There is nothing forced or spasmodic in his verse;
it is the true expression of character disciplined by thought and study,
of fancy quickened by ready sympathies, of feeling deepened and calmed
by faith. As is the case with most English poets since Wordsworth, he
invests the impressions received from the various aspects of Nature with
moral associations, and with fine spiritual insight he seeks out the
inner meaning of the external life of the earth. No one describes more
truthfully than he those transient beauties of Nature which in their
briefness and their exquisite variety of change elude the coarse grasp
of t