LEARNED, WALTER, Ed. A Treasury of Favorite Poems. Vignette edition. Illustrated by Joseph M. Gleason. New York: F. A. Stokes Co., 1891. c. 12mo, cl., pp. iii and 390, $1.50; hf. cf., $3.

LEE, FLORENCE POHLMAN, Comp. Sunshine in Life: Poems for the King's Daughters. Selected" and arranged by F. P. Lee; with an Introduction by Margaret Bottome. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1891. c. 12mo, cl., pp. 405, $1.50. LEFFINGWELL, C. W., Ed. Lyrics of the Living Church. Original Poems, Compiled from The Living Church. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1891. c. 12mo, cl., il., pp. v and 275, $1.50. MACK, ROBERT ELLICE, Ed. One Touch of Nature, and Other Poems: a Treasury of Picture and Song. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1891. 4to, cl., il., pp. 47, $3, $4.

MICHEL, Nettie Leila. Ed. The Magazine of Poetry. Vol. III. Illustrated. Buffalo: Charles

Wells Moulton, 1891. 8vo, hf. mor., pp. vi and 512, $3.

MORRIS, HARRISON S., Ed. Where Meadows Meet the Sea: a Collection of Sea Songs and Pastoral Lays. Illustrated by F. F. English. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1891. c. 8vo, cl., pp. 300, $3.50; hf. mor., $4; three-quarters calf, $5.

O'HARA, JAMES BERNARD. Songs of the South. New York: Ward, Locke, Bowden & Co., 1891. 16mo, cl., pp. 147, $1.

PARKER, BENJAMIN S. Hoosier Bards: with Sundry Wildwood and Other Rhymes. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1891.

PERRY, LILLA CABOT, Ed. From the Garden of Hellas. New York: United States Book Co., 1891. c. 12mo, cl., pp. 142, $1.25.

PHELPS, S. DRYDEN, Comp. Songs for all Seasons: a Scriptural and Poetical Calendar for Holidays, Birthdays, and All Days. New York: Silver, Burdette & Co., 1891. c. 12mo, cl., pp. 406, $1.25. SCHELLING, Felix E. Poetic and Verse Criticisms of the Reign of Elizabeth. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1891. 8vo, PP. 97, $2.

SLADEN, DOUGLAS, Ed. Younger American Poets, 1830-1890. With an Appendix of Younger Canadian Poets, Edited by Goodrich Roberts. New York: Cassell Publishing Co., 1891. 12mo, cl., pp. xlviii and 666, $2.

SLADEN, DOUGLAS. Australian Lyrics. Second edition, 1891. New York: Cassell Publishing Co., 1891. 16mo, pp. 99, 5oc.

WOOD, THOMAS L., Comp. Arcade Echoes. Selected Poems from the Virginian University Magazine, 1859-1890. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1891. 16mo, cl., pp. 296, $1.30. ANON. Under the Nursery Lamp: Songs About the Little Ones. New York: A. D. F. Randolph & Co., 1891. 24m0, gilt edges, pp. 87, 75c. ANON. With the Birds: Selected Poems from the best English and American Authors. Illustrated by Giacomelli Gascoigne and Scannell. Boston: D. Lothrop Co., 1891. c. Imp. 16mo, cl., $1.50. ANON. More Borrowings. Compiled by the Ladies of the First Unitarian Church, of Oakland, California. San Francisco: C. A. Murdock & Co. 75c.

VOL. IV.

No. 2.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

A

He was

LGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE is the son of the late Admiral Charles Henry Swinburne and his wife, Lady Jane Henrietta, daughter of George, third Earl of Ashburnham. born in Pimlico in 1837, and in 1857 entered as a¦ Commoner at Balliol College, Oxford. He took no degree, but he was a distinguished student, if not in the sense of success in ordinary work, certainly in the position he took, and the influence he exerted, on the more thoughtful of his fellow students. He was one of the small band who wrote, and under the editorship of John Nichol (now professor of English Literature in Glasgow University), published a periodical entitled Undergraduate Papers. Most of those who were connected with that venture have since become more or less distinguished. In 1860 he published two plays, “The Queen Mother" and "Rosamond," which, for one so young, are remarkable at once for their dramatic spirit and the force and fervor of their verse and skill in metrical resources. They show immaturity, but they also show unmistakable genius. In 1865 he made his mark by the issue of "Atlanta in Calydon," which is one of the most finished and powerful works of its class-Greek in spirit, clear and masterly in its unimpeded movement and graces. His fame was rapidly growing when in 1866 was issued the volume, "Poems and Ballads," composed of pieces many of which had been long written, and the storm which arose over this work threatened to make him notorious as well as famous. He was called prurient, sensual, indecent, and so forth. Mr. Moxon almost unjustifiably withdrew the work from circulation, and it was speedily reissued by another publisher. Mr. Swinburne replied to his accusers-critics they could scarcely be called-in a scathing pamphlet entitled "Notes on Poems and Reviews." Since then Mr. Swinburne's course has been a highly successful and industrious one. He has contributed largely to the Fortnightly Review and to the Nineteenth Century, essays on

old English dramatists and other literary subjects, which for sympathy, discernment, glow and grace of style, stand almost by themselves. Nor should we forget the service done by his "Study of Victor Hugo," and by his volume on Charlotte Brontë. Essays on George Chapman and on William Blake have varied the list of his works which have since appeared; and we do not need to enter into details regarding his more recent works, which are well known. Over and above the writings to which we have referred, we cannot but make mention of the work he has done in the way of annotation and commentary on Shakespeare and on the poet Shelley, with which students of literature should on no account fail to make themselves acquainted. It should be added that Mr. Swinburne is one of the few men who can write in French as fluently and correctly as in English-some of his poems in that tongue having won the warmest praise from distinguished French critics. Mr. Swinburne's rare resources of language no poet of our time has surpassed, any more than his wealth of fancy, and his power of metrical arrangement. As a metrist, indeed, he is more original and inventive than any of our English poets; he scarcely ever writes a great lyric but he invents a measure for it-often of the most striking and effective kind, as witness "The Hymn to Man." As a lyrical poet Mr. Swinburne is original, sweet, piercing, penetrating and possessing. There is no half-way house of admiration possible with him. You must either surrender yourself to his fascinations or leave him alone. His range is not so wide as that of some poets, who possess but little of his intensity; but he walks alone in his own field. Some of the specimens we shall extract will do something to attest this, we hope, in the minds of our readers. A. H. J.

ROCOCO.

TAKE hands, and part with laughter, Touch lips, and part with tears;