he may be said to have a spiritual kinship,
and in the songs of the Northumbrian miner we meet with something of the
Ayrshire peasant's wild gaiety and mad humour. He gives himself up
freely to his impressions, and there is a fine, careless rapture in his
laughter. The whole book deserves to be read, and much of it deserves to
be loved. Mr. Skipsey can find music for every mood, whether he is
dealing with the real experiences of the pitman or with the imaginative
experiences of the poet, and his verse has a rich vitality about it. In
these latter days of shallow rhymes it is pleasant to come across some
one to whom poetry is a passion not a profession.

Mr. F. B. Doveton belongs to a different school. In his amazing
versatility he reminds us of the gentleman who wrote the immortal
handbills for Mrs. Jarley, for his subjects range from Dr. Carter Moffatt
and the Ammoniaphone to Mr. Whiteley, Lady Bicyclists, and the
Immortality of the Soul. His verses in praise of Zoedone are a fine
example of didactic poetry, his elegy on the death of Jumbo is quite up
to the level of the subject, and the stanzas on a watering-place,

Who of its merits can e'er think meanly?
Scattering ozone to all the land!

are well worthy of a place in any shilling guidebook. Mr. Doveton
divides his poems into grave and gay, but we like him least when he is
amusing, for in his merriment there is but little melody, and he makes
his muse grin through a horse-collar. When he is serious he is much
better, and his descriptive poems show that he has completely mastered
the most approved poetical phraseology. Our old friend Boreas is as
'burly' as ever, 'zephyrs' are consistently 'amorous,' and 'the welkin
rings' upon the smallest provocation; birds are 'the feathered host' or
'the sylvan throng,' the wind 'wantons o'er the lea,' 'vernal gales'
murmur to 'crystal rills,' and Lempriere's Dictionary supplies the Latin
names for the sun and the moon. Armed with these daring and novel
expressions Mr. Doveton indulges in fierce moods of nature-worship, and
botanises recklessly through the provinces. Now and then, however, we
come across some pleasing passages. Mr. Doveton apparently is an
enthusiastic fisherman, and sings merrily of the 'enchanting grayling'
and the 'crimson and gold trout' that rise to the crafty angler's
'feathered wile.' Still, we fear that he will never produce any real
good work till he has made up his mind whether d