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Webster has a large number of admirers, but her merits have yet to be made known to "the many." Her chief notes are sounded on the chord of the evanescent character of human joys.

No. 31.-Page 46.

From Flotsam and Jetsam (1877); a collection of poems old and new, by the poet to whom his friend Robert Browning has given fame as "Waring." Mr. Domett's poetry deserves to be read, however, for its own sake. See, especially, No. 105.

No. 32.-Page 47.

From Spindrift (1867). Sir Noel Paton is like. Mr. D. G. Rossetti, a painter-poet, and is almost as successful on paper as he is on canvass in perpetuating the delicacy of his fancy.

No. 34.-Page 49.

One of the most musical things Mr. Buchanan has written it appeared originally in a magazine.

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No. 36.-Page 54.

Miss Rossetti is unquestionably the most popular female poet of the day, and well deserves her laurels. Her work is, on the whole, the best poetic soil on which the sentiment of her own sex could be nurtured, for, although it is melancholy in its general cast, it has many moments of spiritual elevation. See, notably, No. 136.

No. 38.-Page 58.

This appeared first in The Argosy.

No. 41.-Page 63.

One of the happiest passages in Lord Houghton's volumes. Here, as elsewhere in this poet's writings, there is a distinct tone as of the best verse of the seventeenth century.

No. 43.-Page 65.

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From Queen Mary, act iii., scene 5; where it is posed to be sung behind the scenes by a milkmaid.

No. 45.-Page 67.

From the collected Poems (1877) of Mr. Allingham, who is one of the freshest and most idyllic of our poets. The last two lines in this lyric are charming.

No. 46.—Page 69.

From the Human Tragedy, act iv.

No. 47.-Page 71.

From London Lyrics (1877); a volume of delightful verse, which has already gone into eight or nine editions, and seems destined to go into a dozen more. It will always be a valued possession of every true lover of the alternately vivacious and pathetic, limpid and pointed in modern poetry. Mr. Locker is too often regarded as only a society-poet-that is, as

exclusively a laureate of Mayfair, its doings and its sayings. He is this, but he is more, for he has written some of the most successful "serious" poetry of the day.

No. 50.-Page 76.

From Songs before Sunrise (1871). Mr. Swinburne is seen at his best, perhaps, in brief lyric flights like this.

No. 51.-Page 77.

The production of a poet the amount of whose lyric work has been but small, whilst its excellence is sufficient to make us wish for more. From the fact that a new edition of Sir Henry Taylor's poems has recently been issued, it is safe to argue that they are now more appreciated by the "general" than they were. There is a solid and sonorous beauty about them which the present generation seems to find it difficult to appreciate. The plays are emphatically for the closet, but they are none the worse for that in an age when theatrical representations are beset by so many drawbacks for poetic work.

No. 52.-Page 78.

From Pegasus Resaddled (1877); a mélange of verse, full of fluency and verve.

No. 53.-Page 80.

From Greenwood's Farewell, and other Poems (1876); a volume which worthily maintained the

reputation won by Jonas Fisher (1875) and since confirmed by The Meda Maiden and other Poems (1877).

No. 54.-Page 82.

The work of one whose reputation is greater in the field of criticism than in the field of song, but whose verse has nevertheless much spontaneity of fancy as well as depth of thought. The refrain of this particular poem recalls, in its peculiar lilt, that of one of Sir Walter Scott's most happy lyrics :

"Adieu for evermore,

My Love!

And adieu for evermore."

No. 55.-Page 84.

St. Paul

From St. Paul and other Poems (1870). itself is a soliloquy, supposed to be uttered by the Apostle, and marked by fervid and melodious rhetoric. It represents the highest level to which, up to the present time, the writer's powers have attained.

No. 56.-Page 85.

From A Tale of Eternity and other Poems (1869). This lyric reminds one a little both of Charles Lamb's Hester and Frederick Locker's My Neighbour Rose. Its best praise is, that it is not unworthy to rank near those masterpieces. It has a pathetic

quaintness which is very pleasing.

No. 57.-Page 87.

From Lays of Middle Age and other Poems (1859),

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by a Scotch journalist, who has for too many years 'given up" to the Press the talents which were "meant for" Literature in its more permanent forms.

No. 59.-Page 90.

By a writer who has of recent years preferred to cultivate the field of fiction, rather than that of poetry, in which he was once so noticeable a labourer. This, and No. 148, are taken from Mr. Meredith's earliest volume (1851). His strongest verse, perhaps, is to be found in Modern Love (1862).

No. 61.-Page 92.

There is a touch of Carew about this lyric.

No. 64.-Page 99.

From Proverbs in Porcelain (1877). Mr. Austin Dobson is, like Mr. Locker, too often looked upon as merely a producer of society-verse. He has certainly written some of the best specimens in English of that difficult genre; he has, in fact, displayed in vers de sociétè an originality of style and tone which proclaims him one of its most accomplished masters. Like Mr. Locker, however though in quite a different way, for Mr. Dobson is thoroughly individual in his work--he has done admirable things in the poetry both of "sentiment" and "reflection." (See, for example, Nos. 133 and 142.) His efforts in the direction of French forms in English speak for themselves. Altogether, Mr. Dobson has a high and secure position among the singers of the day.

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