Birds and Poets, with other Papers. By John Burroughs. (Hurd
and Houghton, New York ; Traner, London.)—We like Mr. Burroughs better when he is talking about birds (some of our readers may have as pleasant a remembrance of a previous work, "Winter Sunshine," as we. have) than when he is talking about poets. He loves nature, and keenly observes it, and he has the gift of making others see what he sees. As a critic, he does not seem quite well balanced. He has some clever things, indeed, to say about Mr. Emerson, and though hie lan- guage is sometimes affected and obscure, estimates him, on the whole, not only with fairness, but with insight. But the paper on Walt Whitman, which he is pleased to entitle, "The Flight of the Eagle," is
less satisfactory. This, however, is a long question to discuss, and not suited to the prosont occasion. But can one imagine a number of Walt Whitmans, a school of poets (if we are to reverse all our notions, and allow that poetry can exist without form) who write about their arm-pits and toe-nails ?
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