Lancelot, with Sonnets and other Poems. By William Falford, M.A.
(Moron.)—The versification in this volume is very good. The poems. are quite free from any exhibition of bad taste ; there is always a mean- ing in the lines, which is really positive praise, and yet we are afraid. the world will not be grateful for the book. Vigour and originality are wanting ; thero is no new thought, no force of expression, nor even that happy sing-song which is sometimes accepted as a substitute. Mr. Ful- ford in his long poem of "Lancelot" has caught the trick of the Tenny- sonian verse, but his lines are
" So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there."
Then he gives a fair translation from the sixth book of the Iliad and some sixty sonnets in praise of love and beauty. We really cannot imagine any one reading more than half-a-dozen of these, so trite are the ideas and so monotonous the polished versification. We consider that the volume displays just that amount of power, taste, and refine- ment which is wasted upon the making of verses.
Previous page
