I saw at once the danger, and stepping from
the footpath, show'd myself before the startled animal, which
forthwith slackened pace, and darting up adroitly, I seized the rein,
and in another moment, had released the maiden's foot, and held her,
all insensible, within my arms. Poor girl, her head and face were
sorely bruised, and I tried hard to staunch the blood which flowed
from many a scalp-wound, and wipe away the dust that disfigured her
lovely features. In another moment the Squire was by my side. 'Poor
child,' he cried, alarmed, 'is she dead?' 'No, sir; not dead, I
think,' said I, 'but sorely bruised and injured.'

There is clearly nothing to be gained by dividing the sentences of this
simple and straightforward narrative into lines of unequal length, and
Mr. Barker's own arrangement of the metre,

In another moment,
The Squire was by my side.
'Poor child,' he cried, alarmed, 'is she dead?'
'No, sir; not dead, I think,' said I,
'But sorely bruised and injured,'

seems to us to be quite inferior to ours. We beg that the second edition
of The Pilgrimage of Memory may be issued as a novel in prose.

Mr. Gladstone Turner believes that we are on the verge of a great social
cataclysm, and warns us that our _cradles_ are even now being rocked by
_slumbering volcanoes_! We hope that there is no truth in this
statement, and that it is merely a startling metaphor introduced for the
sake of effect, for elsewhere in the volume there is a great deal of
beauty which we should be sorry to think was doomed to immediate
extinction. The Choice, for instance, is a charming poem, and the sonnet
on Evening would be almost perfect if it were not for an unpleasant
assonance in the fifth line. Indeed, so good is much of Mr. Gladstone
Turner's work that we trust he will give up rhyming 'real' to 'steal' and
'feel,' as such bad habits are apt to grow on careless poets and to blunt
their ear for music.

Nivalis is a five-act tragedy in blank verse. Most plays that are
written to be read, not to be acted, miss that condensation and
directness of expression which is one of the secrets of true dramatic
diction, and Mr. Schwartz's tragedy is consequently somewhat verbose.
Still, it is full of fine lines and noble scenes. It is essentially a
work of art, and though, as far as language is concerned, the personages
all speak through the lips of the poet, yet in passion and purpose their
characters are clearly differentiated, and the Queen Nivalis and her
lover Giulio are drawn with real psychological power. We hope that some
day Mr. Schwartz will write a play for the stage, as he has the dramatic
instinct and the dramatic imagination, and can make life pass into
literature without robbing it of its reality.

(1) The Queen's Innocent, with Other Poems. By Elise Cooper. (David
Stott.)

(2) The Chimneypiece of Bruges and Other Poems. By Constance E. Dixon.
(Elliot Stock.)

(3) Oliver Cromwell and Other Poems. By Dawson Burns, D.D. (Partridge
and Co.)

(4) The Circle of Saints. By K. E. V. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)

(5) Poems. By Edward Foskett. (Kegan Paul.)

(6) The Pilgrimage of Memory. By John Thomas Barker.