A Little Child's Monument. By the Hon. Roden Noel. (C.
Kegan Paul and Co.)—A. book that expresses throughout strong personal feeling is, no more than a book of devotion, a fit subject for criti- cism. The gift of verse is naturally called upon to give a form to strong emotion, and it is not possible for either writer or reader to coldly estimate the precise literary value of that which is produced. That we should have here sweetness and pathos, a keen sense of the beauty of nature, made more intense by the moving con- trast between it and human sorrow, all those who know Mr. Noel's work from his earlier volumes will expect. That art in some poems should be less strongly emphasised than feeling would be inevitable ; from this it naturally follows that the form is most satisfactory when the verse follows recognised models.
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