vy Ballades in Harvard China. By E. S. M. (Williams,
Boston,
U.S.) -There are verses grave and gay in this collection, but the gravity • of a somewhat common-place type, and the gaiety hardly raises a lissh. The author has evidently construed Horace, read msoomreothoirnglesosf °ri Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Macaulay, been ',idea of Barham, and a more diligent one of Bret Haste. ButImyond an occasional " Americanism " and some local allusions, tzere is not, much that is distinctively Transatlantic) about the,. " ballades," which, are dubbed "sly" on small provocation. Nos u they ey to .t be said to bear Much re-
semblance, save in title, Lesig's charming " XXXII." In fad, they are little there the le el of sixth-form lays, save, per- haps, a couple entitled, one, " A Mortifying Subject," the other, "In the Elysian Fields," in both of which the ring is perceptible of that mocking, astringent, yet not unkindly humour, which is so char- acteristic a by-product of the American intelleet,—a strange medley of bitter and sour, that raises rather a grin than a laugh. In the first, the speaker, afflicted with that " Welt.schmerz " not unknown in the. New World, amid all its hope and energy, declares his longing,-
" To occupy a tranquil spot. Some seven feet by two, And just serenely lie and rot, With nothing else to do ;"
and moved, perhaps, by a twinge of the national ailment, dyspepsia, takes a quaint revenge upon the offending organ,-
" And if I should be there to see ' My stomach take its leave, I'd gather up my mouldering shroud,
And chuckle in my sleeve."
Of the other, the proem will bear quotation
" What I you here P Why, old man, 1 never
Felt more surprise, or more delight. Who would have dreamt that you would ever Parade around in robes of white P I always thought of you as dodging The cools and firebrands ssinewhere else ; And here you are, with board and lodging, Where not so much as butter melts."
On the whole, the tone of these "ballades" is not that of healthy youth. Old Harvardians, however, may very well recognise in them merits which escape a critic who has never "hurled the pigskin sphere " on " Jarvis Field," nor loafed " in front of Holworthy," tossing "the shining cent." •
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