26 AUGUST 1865, Page 22

Poems. By Matthias Barr. (Longman.)—Neither this collection, nor Village Bells

and other Poems, by John Brent, Jun., F.S.A. (Hamil- ton and Adams), escape the Horatian condemnation. In the former volume "The Painter's Love" and "A Mother's Moan" are readable, but they are mixed up with pieces such as " The Lash " or "Havelock the Brave," which are simply intolerable. We are afraid that Mr. Brent is apt to put together fine words without much attention to the meaning. There seems more sound than sense in the following lines :— " Oh ! do not scorn the echoing past, for on its waves there lie,

And swell and sink in light and shade, 'neath many a changing sky, Lone murmurs, like a Prophet's voice on eddying surges wrought,

That sweep like whirlwinds ploughing up the unfathomed depths of

thought."