Dreams to Sell. By May Kendall. (Longmans, Green, and Co.)
—The scientific poems of May Kendall have appeared in Punch: there is, therefore, no need to discuss the excellence of "The Lay of the Trilobite," or "The Ballad of the Tethyoramus," and the others, which are almost as good. The "Town and Country" poems are some of them worthy successors to Hood's pathetic poems ; "The Legend of the Crossing-Sweeper" is a pathetic little piece; "At the Winning-Post," in quite another vein, is equally good, and touches a higher mark. All the poems which we see classified under the headings "Sea and Shore," "Art," "In Church," "Memories," and " Pyschologigal," are of much merit, and possess qualities of metre and expression of a high order. But it is on those we have mentioned, the " Scientific " and the "Town and Country" poems, that May Kendall's fame will rest. In the one class, she shows wit and skill in parody combined ; and in the other, humour and pathos gracefully expressed.
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