Urbana Scripta. By Arthur Galton. (Elliot Stock.)—Mr. Galton makes an
honest, painstaking effort to criticise the poetry of the day. He is not a partisan, but is nullius addictus jurare in verbs magistri ; he can praise or blame, as the occasion seems to demand; and his judgments, whether or no we are always inclined to accept them, are invariably well-considered. Lord Tennyson, Messrs. Browning, M. Arnold, Swinburne, and William Morris are the subjects of the essays, a preliminary discussion being devoted to the " poetry of the day." Here are some of his sentences :—" We are so much in sympathy with his [Lord Tennyson's] thought; we are so fascinated with his tone and his manner, and this with so little effort, as he comes so far to meet us, that we cannot realise what those will think of him who have not this link of living sympathy." " Browning is not so much an artist as an anatomist." ,, Matthew Arnold is the poet of the inner intellectual life." "Mr. Morris has revived a lost art,—the art of story-telling." It is scarcely fair to Mr. Galton to quote him in this way ; still, it may suggest to our readers to make farther acquaintance with his work.
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