estiny intends him for a
poet or for an advertising agent, and we venture to hope that should he
ever publish another volume he will find some other rhyme to 'vision'
than 'Elysian,' a dissonance that occurs five times in this well-meaning
but tedious volume.

As for Mr. Ashby-Sterry, those who object to the nude in art should at
once read his lays of The Lazy Minstrel and be converted, for over these
poems the milliner, not the muse, presides, and the result is a little
alarming. As the Chelsea sage investigated the philosophy of clothes, so
Mr. Ashby-Sterry has set himself to discover the poetry of petticoats,
and seems to find much consolation in the thought that, though art is
long, skirts are worn short. He is the only pedlar who has climbed
Parnassus since Autolycus sang of

Lawn as white as driven snow,
'Cypress black as e'er was crow,

and his details are as amazing as his diminutives. He is capable of
penning a canto to a crinoline, and has a pathetic monody on a
mackintosh. He sings of pretty puckers and pliant pleats, and is
eloquent on frills, frocks and chemisettes. The latest French fashions
stir him to a fine frenzy, and the sight of a pair of Balmoral boots
thrills him with absolute ecstasy. He writes rondels on ribbons, lyrics
on linen and lace, and his most ambitious ode is addressed to a Tomboy in
Trouserettes! Yet his verse is often dainty and delicate, and many of
his poems are full of sweet and pretty conceits. Indeed, of the Thames
at summer time he writes so charmingly, and with such felicitous grace of
epithet, that we cannot but regret that he has chosen to make himself the
Poet of Petticoats and the Troubadour of Trouserettes.

(1) Carols from the Coal-Fields, and Other Songs and Ballads. By Joseph
Skipsey. (Walter Scott.)

(2) Sketches in Prose and Verse. By F. B. Doveton. (Sampson Low,
Marston and Co.)

(3) The Lazy Minstrel. By J. Ashby-Sterry. (Fisher Unwin.)

A NEW CALENDAR

(Pall Mall Gazette, February 17, 1887.)

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding
us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly
uninteresting event. Their compilers display a degraded passion for
chronicling small beer, and rake out the dust-heap of history in an
ardent search after rubbish. Mr. Walter Scott, however, has made a new
departure and has published a calendar in which every day of the year is
made beautiful for us