ter is the daintiest and sweetest of amatory
poets. He has the fancy of Carew, without his artificiality; he
has Carew's sweetness, without his grossness of suggestion.

There is a tinge of sadness in some of Mr. Winter's poems, and
the critics, we suppose, will censure him for it. If so, they
will be in the wrong. The poet has the right to express his
moods, sad or merry, and he is no more to be judged by his sad
moods than his merry ones. He is to be judged by both, and the
sum of both--if the critic is able to add it up--is the poet. As
far as he is revealed in his book, that is, but no further. There
is such a thing as Dramatic Poetry, as some critics are aware,
and there is such a thing as Representative Poetry, as few
critics are aware. The former deals with the passions, the
latter with those shadowy and evanescent sensations which we call
feelings. Mr. Winter is not a dramatic poet, but he is, in his
own way, a representative poet. His poem "Lethe" represents one
set of feelings; "The White Flag" another; and "Love's Queen"
another. We like the last best. For, while we believe the others
to be equally genuine, they do not impress us as being the best
expression of his genius. What we feel most after finishing his
volume, what seems to us most characteristic of his poetry, is
loveliness--the tender loveliness that lingers in the mind after
we have seen the sun-set of a quiet summer evening, or after
we have heard music on a dreamy summer night. If this poetic
melancholy be treason, the critics may make the most of it. Mr.
Winter has nothing to fear. He has the authority of the greatest
poets with which to defend himself, and confute the critics.

_ART._

THE PRODIGAL SON, BY EDOUARD DUBUFE.

The sublime lesson of forgiveness, inculcated by the story of
the Prodigal Son, is among the earliest and most familiar in the
memories of a nation of Bible readers like our own. Every one
of us, perhaps unconsciously, carries in mind a simple,
straight-forward conception of this subject, formed in early
childhood--a time when the imagination rarely goes beyond an
attempt to realize the unlooked for forgiveness of the once
deserted parent, or the captivating visions of adventure
suggested by the changing fortunes of the wanderer during his
absence in a "far country."

With the painter the picture is his vision, and the panels are
the realities. As a man of a different order of thought would
have chosen anothe