Poems of Independence and Liberty. By William Wordsworth. With Introduction
by Stopford A. Brooke. (Isbister and Co.)— The rapid movement of events has somewhat belated our notice of this book, in which a set of poems, published by Wordsworth himself under this title, is "reprinted on behalf of the Greek Struggle for the Independence of Crete." It will be best simply to mention its appearance.—The Children of Sparta, by Hugh Macnaghten (R. Ingalton Drake, Eton), is a poem of the Persian War. The first scene is laid at Sparta, and shows us Doris, daughter of Leonidas, and Theia, daughter of Eurytus, playing together (Eurytus wa.s the Spartan who, blind as he was with qphthalmia, joined the Three Hundred at Thermopyhe). In the second we have Gorge, wife to Leonidas, and the children. In the third Leonidas hears of the treachery of Ephialtes and sends away the other Greeks. (But why no notice of the Thespians who elected to remain ?) Scenes four, five, and six carry on the story to the end. It is told with considerable force. The profits are to go to the Greek wounded.
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