that was always melodious and fluent, though showing few traces

of power. These sonnets are a distinct advance. The sonnet is, indeed, to a writer who really knows the principles of Ms art, and has the necessary command of expression, an admirable vehicle of thought, snore especially if facility is a temptation to him. The necessary compression and effort are exactly the discipline which he needs, as well as the fact, which a man of sense and culture and reading must needs recognise, that there must be a central thought in each poem, a thought, too, not unworthy of the labour which has been obviously spent upon it. These sonnets—the work, as we gather from the dates, of many years—are of course unequal in merit ; but they rise occasionally, we may say more than occasionally, to a high level of merit. Here is one which, we do not hesitate to say, ought to have its place in any collection of the future :-

"OLD LETTERS.

It seems but yesterday abs died, I nt years Have passed since then ; the wondrous change of time

Makes great things little, little things sublime, And winctifies the dew of daily tears.

She died, as all must die; no trace appears

In Elistorv's paps. nor Pave in my peer rhyme,

Of her, whose life was love, whose lovely prime Passed sully where no sorrows are, nor fears.

It seems but yesterday; to-day I read

A few short !cetera in her own dear hand,

And doubted if 'Mere true. Their tender grace Seems radiant with her life ! Oh! can the dead Thee in their letters live ? I tied the band, And kissed her name as though I kissed her face."

There is a simple, tender pathos about this which makes it very effective. Here is another, a charming picture, drawn in a gayer mood :—

"THE WOOD-NYMPH.

The lime-trees shed their blossoms, and the scent Filled the Ught air that dallied round the grove ; The honeysuckle tmdrils deftly wove A net to catch them—swecta on sweets intent. The thyme, scarce crushed (for she a-tiptoe wen!), Breathed a faint tiibute of its dying love. Clinging about her foot.teps as they move, And all the wood in smiling homage bent. Fair as yhung bit ds in early spring, one hand Led in rose-fetters a mew-canter d fawn, The other held a palm leaf, from the stream That trickled through the thicket,—like the wand Of some enchantress, gracious as the Dawn She passed, this Oread of a poet's &cam."

—College Days ; Recorded in Blank Verse. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—The author has a certain gift of humorous description, but we cannot make out that he has any gift of verse. Verse is, of course, the appropriate channel for such trifles as these, which, indeed, would hardly be written if the author were limited to prose. But then it must be of a better quality than this. Dignity it need not have, but lightness and ease it requires, and this is exactly what " Leslie Howard" seems unable to command. Here is a sketch, not without some skill, but sadly marred by the worse than prosaic verse :—

"Me is an aculemie radical,'

His theories feet advanoiug, while he site

Ia'Queen Anne room.' and soothes his lonely soul

With ancient silver, old Venetian glass, And all things which a perfect tags demands. His greatest and most ardent wish, he sass, Is a desire to elevate aid teatiS The =sews; not directly, it would seem.

His mission being rather, it appears,

To elevvve the masses thr ugh a high,

Ennebling medium of dnkes anti earls. Be brings his mighty influence to bear Upon a barbarous aristocracy,

Showing them how to lead the mob to light ;

And in to doing feels himself to be .

A perfect benefactor of mankind."

—Songs by the Wayside of an Agnostic's Life. By Himself. (Stewart and Co.)—The writer expresses a dreary creed, or, rather, negation of creed, in appropriately dreary verse. Here is a fair specimen :— " So grindeth on immensity,

And all are crushed beneath Its pond-rous wheel, for soon or late, We all sub ide in death.

And surely it is blasphemy For earthworms to presume That at their wlesper law should cease ; A nod—IM course resume."

Anyhow, there is no dangerous music here, as of a siren, to draw the hearts of men from the ancient paths of faith.—Lady Margaret's Sorrows, and other Poems, by Cameron Madowall (W. H. Beer and Co.), has reached a second edition, as we gather, not from the title. page, but from a page of quoted criticisms. This is praise enough. If it should attain the honour of a third, we would suggest that " wither- gather " and "sister-Easter," rhymes which we find in two successive stanzas, are susceptible of improvement.—The Sing of the Silver City, and other Poems. By "A. W." (Women's Printing Society.)—" A. W." writes some vigorous verse, inspired, we should imagine, from the general character of her poems, by a strong yearning for a democratic regime. Still, we are intended, we suppose, to learn from the first and longest poem in the volume that Demos is fickle, and that they who serve him must look for the reward of betrayal. There is something fine in the thought, though the expression somewhat fails, of the following (from the poem entitled " Demagogos) ":- "It the cloud has lifted for me O'er the path our feet have trod ; If I have knelt in the secret place And Ilford the voice of God ;

Should I fold my bands and rest, While ye are athirst and astray P Shall I not lift up my voice and cry,

' Follow , this is the way !'

Not for your thanks, your praise!- Ni : , 0 my own, it were awcet To slip, and stumble, be trampled dawn, And die beneath your feet,

If only at last the crow I, Pushing and pressing sore,

Sheila fled the path tall sttuld in the light, Free on the glorious shore I"

—Lyre and Star : Poems. By the Author of " Ginevra," &c. (Kogan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—The author, who has already given to the world some eight or nine tragedies, now brings out a volume of occasional verse, containing considerably more than a hundred poems. We must own that we have found them somewhat wearisome. The tragedies have at least a story ; but the motive of these pieces is not evident. They even fail in the commonest necessary qualities of expression. Here are two stanzas, from a poem entitled "Two Spirits :"—

One, warm and radiant as the glorious sun, That kindles up the stars to light The heav, to, when his daily course being run, Ile for a time gives place to night.

The other, cold and pale as moon, that gleams On iceberg in a Polar sea,

Where breeding frozen silence only seems To wake the ghosts of things that be."

—Strains/rein the Strand : Trifles in Verse. By 11. 5. Leigh. (Tinsley Brothers).—There are many sounds in the Strand, and for most of them some ears appreciative. It is possible that even these rightly. named " trifles " may be read with pleasure by some, but it must be in their very idlest hours.—Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon Poem, and The Fight at Finnsburye. Translated by James M. Garnett, M.A. (Ginn and Heath, Boston, U.S.)—This volume contains some very painstaking work by an American scholar. We cannot help, however, regretting, on behalf of the general public of readers, the choice of the literal line-for-liue form. It always detracts from the vigour and beauty of a poem, even when, as in this case, the language of the original is an ancestor of the language of the trans- lation. Mr. Garnett does not think that the shorter fragment over belonged to Beowulf. The date of the poem he considers to be, at the latest, before 752 A.D.—Of Verses of Varied Life, by Mackenzie Bell (Elliot Stock), we cannot honestly praise more than the senti- ments and intention.