27 OCTOBER 1888, Page 22

which are worthy of being clothed in a better form

than Mr. Ambler has been able to give them. More than this we cannot say. "A Leaf from Marc Antony" is a short poem after the model of Lord Tennyson's " Locksley Hall." But if Mr. Ambler is possessed of any poetic faculty, it certainly does not lie in the direction of passion. Here he has tried to be passionate, with the result that he not nnfrequently appears ridiculous. In another of his poems, called "Eurydice," we find the same End of thing. Orpheus, who has gone down to Hacks to fetch back his lost wife, says

"And seeing you I came to steal, I could not bats wonder feel That Lxion groaned upon his wheel, Eurydice, Eurydice."

We have no doubt -that Ixion "groaned upon his wheel." Probably, however, Eurydice had very little to do with it. By-the-way, we would remind Mr. Ambler that the second " i" in Ixion is long. His metre requires it to be short. There is also a poem on Alcestis, in blank verse. We are sorry to say that Mr. Ambler has not yet mastered the pause which constitutes the difference between blank verse and very poor prose printed in lines of ten syllables. Perhaps, however, the following lines, from a poem on "Saturn," will give a better idea of Mr. Ambler's powers than anything else :— "Gleamed upon Cain's sleep, and seemed To his conscience horrid, With the knowledge while he dreamed Of his branded forehead. Rolling through on awful drowth To the fair hereafter,

While his great volcano mouth Bellows loud with laughter."