28 JANUARY 1865, Page 20

Crescent? and Other Lyrics. By H. Cholmondeley Pennell. (Edward Meson

and Co.)—The first of these poems seems to be an answer to the question whether poetry is "crescent" or on the wane. Like all the author's writing, it has thought in it, and considerable power, but wants polish and continuity. There is something fragmentary about Mr. Pennell's mode of dealing with a subject, and it is not always easy to see the connection between the different parts of his longer poems. To his short pieces which embody a single thought this criticism of course does pot apply. We think he succeeds best with subjects like "Fire," in which a London fire is hit off with a rough eigour which is well suited to reproduce the excitement and confusion and noise which fill the mind of the looker-on at such a scene.