Cothurnus and Lyre. By Edward J. Harding. (New York :
The Authors' Publishing Company.)—This is a remarkable volume, to be " the work of a young Xnglish book-keeper, at present residing in New York." It has many extravagances and faults of taste. The author is cynical and rebellions against established order, as is the wont of youth, especially when it seems to have missed its career. But he shows a vigour which is quite uncommon, and affords a singular contrast to the smooth verse which the widely spread culture of the present day produces in such abundance. The volume contains a play—" Ernest "- and eighteen "Odes." The play contains that mixture of tragedy and comedy which is familiar in the Elizabethan drama. The comic dialogue is smart and sometimes even brilliant, though we are not sure that it would not have been better away. It does not help forward the action of the piece ; generally, too, we think, the feeling of the day is against the mixture. The plot of the tragedy has something of the old Greek spirit about it. Only we have not here an ancestral doom hanging over an ac- cursed house, but, with a skilful adaptation to altered habits of thought, the doom of a besetting sin, which a noble nature cannot shake off. The passionate striving of Ernest to break the chain which binds him, and the pathetic faithfulness of Eva to the man to whom she has given her heart, and whom, in spite of all his weakness, she will not leave, and the striking scenes in which she helps him to what seems to both the last and only remedy, are very powerfully given. We must quote- Ernest's farewell words :—
"Thanks, sweet heart Bend down your head a little ! let me see
Or think I ace your eyes. Yes, I ant going;
Pray you, another kiss before I die !
For UN there waiteth in this world of earth
No bridal torch, no clasp of wedded arms. No voice of children at the fireside knees; Breaks at my feet the ocean—I shall sail To that wan world, obscure as destiny, Wherein our fathers rest ; and it may be Some subtle alchemy shall blend anew The elements of my soul, and I shall change To something other than I am, and lacking klemory and love of thee, and stony-cold To thy sweet kisses; and between us two Perchance no love shall be for evermore.
So kiss me while my lips are warm ! Good-bye !
Is this your hand ? "
The " Odes " are less noble,—sometimes, we must say, positively ignoble, in sentiment. But they show the power which might, unless we are greatly mistaken, produce something very good indeed. We have not seen anything so genuinely Horatian in sentiment and manner, being at the same time wholly free from imitation, as this :—
" V. To NE/ERA.
"Siren of sixteen summers, whose bright eyes Shoot sunbeams front beneath their feathery fringes ; Whose brow and cheek the rich blood tinges With crimson as of sunset skies, Cease! I am ware of each enchanting wile ; Vainly for me thy nut-brown eyes are glowing, In vain the Punic rose is blowing About the dimples of thy smile.
I know thee fickle as I deem thee fair ; Unmov'd I hear thy limpid laughters ringing, Or view thee o'er thy shoulders flinging Billows of hyacinthine hair.
Breakers ahead !—That heaving heart of thine Rings hollow to the strokes of sweet emotion, For thou art pitiless as the ocean, And bitter as the barren brine.
In vain—ah gods, what means this agony?
Ho, brothers, bind me fast ! my force is failing: Pull, merry men all ! I would be sailing The waters of a shallower sea."
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