Wit and Humour. Poems by the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.
(J. C. Hotten.)—Dr. Holmes's poems are not new to the English public. If we mistake not, one of those which appear in this collection was quoted nearly fifteen years ago by Miss Mitford, in her Recollections of a Literary Life. But though the charm of novelty is thus wanting, the charm of familiarity and old association is even greater. If we did not know Dr. Holmes of old, we should be tempted to compare some of his poems to Praed, and others to Hood. We should, perhaps, end by placing him between those two hnmourists, as he combines not a little of the boisterous fun of the one with the playful delicacy of the other. Yet there is a vein of originality running through these poems which some- times shames us out of our comparison. We have to confess that here is something unlike anything English, and a second thought tolls us that it is unlike anything American. So failing in our attempt to label Dr. Holmes with another man's name, we have to label him with his own.
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