This, however, seems to us a somewhat harsh view of the
subject. Little poets are an extremely interesting study. The best of
them have often some new beauty to show us, and though the worst of them
may bore yet they rarely brutalise. Poor Folks' Lives, for instance, by
the Rev. Frederick Langbridge, is a volume that could do no possible harm
to any one. These poems display a healthy, rollicking, G. R. Sims tone
of feeling, an almost unbounded regard for the converted drunkard, and a
strong sympathy with the sufferings of the poor. As for their theology,
it is of that honest, downright and popular kind, which in these
rationalistic days is probably quite as useful as any other form of
theological thought. Here is the opening of a poem called A Street
Sermon, which is an interesting example of what muscular Christianity can
do in the sphere of verse-making:

What, God fight shy of the city?
He's t' other side up I guess;
If you ever want to find Him,
Whitechapel's the right address.

Those who prefer pseudo-poetical prose to really prosaic poetry will wish
that Mr. Dalziel had converted most of his Pictures in the Fire into
leaders for the Daily Telegraph, as, from the literary point of view,
they have all the qualities dear to the Asiatic school. What a splendid
leader the young lions of Fleet Street would have made out of The
Prestige of England, for instance, a poem suggested by the opening of the
Zulu war in 1879.

Now away sail our ships far away o'er the sea,
Far away with our gallant and brave;
The loud war-cry is sounding like wild revelrie,
And our heroes dash on to their grave;
For the fierce Zulu tribes have arisen in their might,
And in thousands swept down on our few;
But these braves only yielded when crushed in the fight,
Man to man to their colours were true.

The conception of the war-cry sounding 'like wild revelrie' is quite in
the true Asiatic spirit, and indeed the whole poem is full of the daring
English of a special correspondent. Personally, we prefer Mr. Dalziel
when he is not quite so military. The Fairies, for instance, is a very
pretty poem, and reminds us of some of Dicky Doyle's charming drawings,
and Nat Bentley is a capital ballad in its way. The Irish poems,
however, are rather vulgar and should be expunged. The Celtic element in
literature is extremely valuable, but there is absolutely no excuse for
shrieking 'Shillelagh!' and 'O Gorrah!'

Women must Weep, by Professor Harald Williams, has the most dreadful
cover of any book that we have come across for some time past. It is
possibly intended to symbolise the sorrow of the world, but it merely
suggests the decorative tendencies of an undertaker and is as depressing
as it is detestable. However, as the cowl does not make the monk, so the
binding, in the case of the Savile Club school, does not make the poet,
and we open the volume without prejudice. The first poem that we come to
is a vigorous attack on those wicked and misguided people who believe
that Beauty is its own reason for existing, and that Art should have no
other aim but her own perfection.