The City at.Night, and Other Poems. By B. Williams - (a_working - tuaa).
(Murray and Co.)—This is a 'bOok which it is'very difficult to criticize, for the author in a very modest and well-written preface insists on NA earnestness with which he has striven to supply the defects of his edu- cation and announces his intention, sheuld the present work prove successful, to try to produce something,bettor, If, then, one judges the book merely as the work of a self-edncated man, one .will, have in some. sort to share the responsibility of advising the author to devote himself to poetry. If one judges it simply' as poetry, it will be impossible to do justice either to the author or one's own feelings. , For Mr. Williams. has " overcome the difficulties surroundhighis position " in a way which is really remarkable, and if he had not 'volunteered the' information no reader would have suspected anything of the sort. On the other hand, we cannot say that the poems "possess sufficient merit to make them acceptable to all true lovers of poetry." There. is, so far as we can see, no original thought in them, or at least we should say so confidently if they were the production of a person. of regular culture. But a " working-man " may very easily think common-places for himself, and have no idea that everything he says has been said a thousand times °afore. Estimated positively, these poems read like the work of a clever boy with a fatal facility of versification. Only once in " The City of Night " (p. 29), where the author describes the furniture which is brought out of some hovels which are in danger of being burned, does he seem to be writing from observation, and not from. his recollection of books. That passage is vigorous, but verses which merely reproduce other people's thoughts are of no value in themselves, though they are what Mr. Williams and his friends may contemplate with just pride. Certainly we cannot see anything in this volume whielt would justify us in encouraging the author to devote hia life, or even his leisure, to poetry. But it does contain enough, and more than enough, to make one feel certain that so much industry and ability would ensure his anccess in some less arduous pursuit. WQ do not say he cannot be a poet, but we do not think he will be a great one, and. is it worth while to be anything less ?
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