Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (English). By Helena Swan. (Swan Sonnenschein
and Co. 7s. 6d.)—Here are between three and four thousand quotations from "contemporary" poets, poets, i.e., who have written since 1850, a definition with large exceptions. The compiler mentions " the two Tennysons, the two Brownings, and the four American poets, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, and Whitman." We may add Wordsworth, who wrote nothing after 1850; Bryant, whose best work was published before that date; and W. Carleton, of whom the same may be said. The arrangement might have been improved. We should not have put Calverley's comic reflections on " Forever " - " Forever! What abysms of woe
The word reveals, what frenzy, what Despair I For ewer (printed so) Did not "-
between E. B. Browning's
"Eternity stands always fronting God "
and Longfellow's
"The horologe of Eternity Sayeth this incessantly."
It looks a little odd, again, to find a line or so below,
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay"
followed by
"And sweet Europe's mantle blue unclasped."
Tennyson, possibly guessing what might happen, spelt the word "Europa," and, in later editions certainly, wrote " blew," not " blue." We miss Mortimer Collins's very best thing:— "There was an ape in the days that were earlier ; Centuries passed, and his hair, it grew curlier ; Centuries more gave a thumb to his fist; Then he was man and a Positivist."
The book will be useful generally, though "search passages " competitions may be hampered by it.
Previous page
