23 NOVEMBER 1867, Page 23

Sketches by the Wayside. By T. Herbert. (A. W. Bennett.)—One

or two short hymns in this volume of 450 pages are worthy of being printed separately. (See the "Oh, hands outstretched for me ! " p. 347.) The rest of the book is prose cut up in lengths or fringed with rhyme. Mr. Herbert is modest enough to call his first piece, which tells a sim- ple enough story in more than 3,000 lines, a metrical tract, but it is a tract of far too great an extent. "Alice Power," which follows, might go on for ever when it is once started, and we are truly grateful to Mr. Herbert for bringing it to an end after only 1,400 lines with nothing in them. The mask of "Lurid" is better, but it is also too long, and its length has the fatal effect of blinding us to its real merits.