The opening lines of The Vendetta also
deserve mention:

When stars are glowing through day's gloaming glow,
Reflecting from ocean's deep, mighty flow,
At twilight, when no grim shadows of night,
Like ghouls, have stalked in wake of the light.

The first line is certainly a masterpiece, and, indeed, the whole volume
is full of gems of this kind. The Professor remarks in his elaborate
preface that Mr. Peacock 'frequently rises to the sublime,' and the two
passages quoted above show how keenly critical is his taste in these
matters and how well the poet deserves his panegyric.

Mr. Alexander Skene Smith's Holiday Recreations and Other Poems is
heralded by a preface for which Principal Cairns is responsible.
Principal Cairns claims that the life-story enshrined in Mr. Smith's
poems shows the wide diffusion of native fire and literary culture in all
parts of Scotland, 'happily under higher auspices than those of mere
poetic impulse.' This is hardly a very felicitous way of introducing a
poet, nor can we say that Mr. Smith's poems are distinguished by either
fire or culture. He has a placid, pleasant way of writing, and, indeed,
his verses cannot do any harm, though he really should not publish such
attempts at metrical versions of the Psalms as the following:

A septuagenarian
We frequently may see;
An octogenarian
If one should live to be,
He is a burden to himself
With weariness and woe
And soon he dies, and off he flies,
And leaveth all below.

The 'literary culture' that produced these lines is, we fear, not of a
very high order.

'I study Poetry simply as a fine art by which I may exercise my intellect
and elevate my taste,' wrote the late Mr. George Morine many years ago to
a friend, and the little posthumous volume that now lies before us
contains the record of his quiet literary life. One of the sonnets, that
entitled Sunset, appeared in Mr. Waddington's anthology, about ten years
after Mr. Morine's death, but this is the first time that his collected
poems have been published. They are often distinguished by a grave and
chastened beauty of style, and their solemn cadences have something of
the 'grand manner' about them. The editor, Mr. Wilton, to whom Mr.
Morine bequeathed his manuscripts, seems to have performed his task with
great tact and judgment, and we hope that this little book will meet with
the recognition that it deserves.

(1) The Ballad of Hadji and Other Poems. By Ian Hamilton. (Kegan Paul.)

(2) Poems in the Modern Spirit, with The Secret of Content. By Charles
Catty. (Walter Scott.)

(3) The Banshee and Other Poems. By John Todhunter. (Kegan Paul.)

(4) Poems of the Plain and Songs of the Solitudes. By Thomas Bower
Peacock. (G. P. Putnam's Sons.)

(5) Holiday Recreations and Other Poems. By Alexander Skene Smith.
(Chapman and Hall.)

(6) Poems. By George Morine. (Bell and Son.)

A FASCINATING BOOK

(Woman's World, November 1888.)

Mr. Alan Cole's carefully-edited translation of M. Lefebure's history of
Embroidery and Lace is one of the most fascinating books that has
appeared on this delightful subject. M.