Caesar Augustus issued a decree,
That all the Imperial world should taxbd he."
These linos are about the best, because the simplest, that are to be found in this volume. We hoped, when we came upon them, almost at the beginning of the poem, that we might find the rest of the work of equal merit, but were soon painfully undeceived. The style which Miss Stapleton chiefly affects is that of Browning ; and his style exaggerated, but without a trace of his power, is a thing simply insufferable. The writer has an unbounded admiration for John the Baptist, her apprecia- tion of whom may be gathered from the line that follows,— . Scholastic spirit ! grandly towering."
We marked this for quotation, as probably the absurdest line that ever was written, but having read to the end of this volume, we have found numerous reasons for altering that opinion.
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