Literary Papers ; being Lectures and Addresses on Various Subjects.
By John Lovell. Edited by his daughter, Kate N. Lovell. (Howell, Liverpool.)—Mr. Lovell was at one time editor of the Liverpool Mercury, and he is perhaps more widely known as the organiser and first manager of the Press Association. In private life, we doubt not he possessed all the virtues with which he is credited by his daughter, but Miss Lovell's expressions of filial affection should have been more guarded in her praise, more tempered with discretion. The lectures, now printed by subscrip- tion, are lively in form and sound in quality, but regarded simply as literature their merits are not striking. The best and fullest is on Moliere ; next to this in quality, although too slight to be altogether satisfactory, is the address upon the Bible. In our judgment, Mr. Lovell, while thoroughly appreciating his humour,. is far from doing justice to Hood as a poet. His puns and over- flowing mirthfulness, poured out amidst daily suffering of mind and body, have served to obscure his faculty of song. That he had it in rare measure no one can question who reads the finest of his sonnets or such lyrics as " Ruth," " Fair Ines," "The Death Bed," the "Ode to Melancholy," and "The Bridge of Sighs." In the lecture upon Epitaphs there are one or two errors which should not have escaped the editor. The well known epitaph is quoted of Lady O'Lovoney, "grandniece of Burke," but in quoting it Mr. Lovell alludes to her as Burke's sister, and Coleridge's " beautiful " epitaph " Ere sin could blight," is so inaccurately printed as to be far from beautiful.
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