Songs of the Spirit, by H. H. (Kitto), came, we
are told in the preface, " unasked for, unpremeditated, and without study or effort." " She believes their source to be in the spirit world." It is very possible, if we are to judge of the capacities of the spirit world from the communi- cations which have reached us through the mediums which it favours. The following is in the genuine fatuous style, as mere mortal criticism thinks, of the spirits :—
"Look not at thy past,
In that thy work is done; Behold not with vain longing, Where days before thee run.
"See! the present hour is thine ; If in that thou labour well, Then the future shall be fruitful, And of worthy deeds may tell."
We would say to H. H., "Let her future poems be `asked for,' and let her trust to 'study and effort,' rather than to the spirits. Vasco : a Tragedy (Longmans), is a drama respectably written, but neither dra- matic nor poetical, telling the story of the end of Vasco Nunez de Balboa. It probably did not strike the writer, but it certainly struck us, that the few sentences of prose which ho quotes by way of epilogue from Mr. Helps' Spanish Conquest in America are pleasanter and certainly easier to read than his hundred pages of verso. But even Mr. Helps' prose will not stand being cut up into lengths. This is what the writer ingenuously confesses in his preface to having sometimes done. What possible public can he hope thus to please ?
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