Poems. By Novas Homo. (Oxford : Wheeler and Day.) —There
is a certain touch of promise in some of these verses, at least if they are, as -doubtless they are, by a very young man, but there are none in the little volume which express any one idea or feeling adequately enough to quote it in proof of what we assert It is rather the presence of a cer- tainglow of ardour and sincerity, than of any true art which seems to pro- mise something better than anything we find. There is a good idea only half worked out in some light stanzas among these verses, namely, that Horace was born too soon in being horn before tobacco waa given to the world. Doubtless a pipe or a cigar would have completed him, but instead of adding another book to the Odes, as Nouns Homo suggests, might not the clouds issuing from his meerschaum have shrouded him altogether from posterity? There is no enemy of the pen like the pipe,
to such a nature as that of Horace. We think it quite possible that Novas Homo may some day write verses worth publication.
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