The Mermaid, and other Pieces. By E. Patterson. (Rees and
Co., Cardiff.)—This volume is a curious medley of good and bad. We are given to understand that Mr. Patterson has been a sailor, and in his principal poem he uses his sea experience to some pur- pose. Here is a vivid little picture :— "And sailors eye their mates and catch their breath And talk with fear of hatches over-turned;
Knives stuck in masts, and low blue lights that burned But yester-eve about the weather vane ; Of many foundered ships that tried in vain To run a Friday's voyage; of drowned eats, And vessels out of which the auguring rats Decamped when last in port."
But there is too much of what is nothing but sad nonsense, as, for instance, of the "mills of the gods"
"They grin while they grind the immartial These millers, immortal and mystical," "S. C. F.," who writes an aggressive preface, would have been better employed if he had gone carefully through his friend's poems and marked the things which imperatively demanded cor- rection. A critic's hardest work is with the minor poets ; he is unfeignedly glad when he finds something distinctive. This, we think, Mr. Patterson shows. But he wants as much friendly help as he can get. If the faults of this first volume are repeated in a second they cannot be pardoned.
Previous page
