Snowbound : a Winter Idyll. By Thomas Greenleaf Whittier. (Longmans.)—This
is an illustrated edition of a poem which may fairly be reckoned as one of the poet's most successful efforts. It is, in fact, a chapter of autobiography, for it gives a picture of his boyhood, a winter scene when a violent snowstorm kept the family, whom he takes occasion to describe, within doors. It would have been more satisfactory if we could have been told that it was pub- lished with the author's consent, and a few later notes as to the persons mentioned would have greatly increased the interest. The illustrations are fairly good ; but is the portrait of the eccentric cousin, who afterwards for a time lived in the East with Lady Hester Stanhope, genuine ? It looks like the reproduction of the photograph, we can hardly help thinking, of some one else, whose countenance seemed not inappropriate to the character. The frontispiece is a portrait of the poet, lately taken, we should imagine, from its character. Perhaps the best-known lines in the poem are :—
"When Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse. A stranpr to the heathen Nine, Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, The Wars of David and the :ews," •
But there are some fine passages in it, especially that beginning :
"Upon the motley-braided mat Our youngest and oar dearest sat Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, Now bathed in the nnfading green And holy peace of Paradise."
It is curious to find the poet speaking of White of Selborne looking out on "Surrey hills."
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