lt is
extremely depressing.

Earth wears her grandest robe, by autumn spun,
Like some stout matron who of youth has run
The course, . . .

is the most dreadful simile we have ever come across even in poetry. Mr.
Griffiths should beware of originality. Like beauty, it is a fatal gift.

Imitators of Mr. Browning are, unfortunately, common enough, but
imitators of Mr. and Mrs. Browning combined are so very rare that we have
read Mr. Francis Prevost's Fires of Green Wood with great interest. Here
is a curious reproduction of the manner of Aurora Leigh:

But Spring! that part at least our unchaste eyes
Infer from some wind-blown philactery,
(It wears its breast bare also)--chestnut buds,
Pack'd in white wool as though sent here from heaven,
Stretching wild stems to reach each climbing lark
That shouts against the fading stars.

And here is a copy of Mr. Browning's mannerisms. We do not like it quite
so well:

If another
Save all bother,
Hold that perhaps loaves grow like parsnips:
Call the baker
Heaven's care-taker,
Live, die; Death may show him where the farce nips.
Not I; truly
He may duly
Into church or church-day shunt God;
Chink his pocket,
Win your locket;--
Down we go together to confront God.

Yet, in spite of these ingenious caricatures there are some good poems,
or perhaps we should say some good passages, in Mr. Prevost's volume. The
Whitening of the Thorn-tree, for instance, opens admirably, and is, in
some respects, a rather remarkable story. We have no doubt that some day
Mr. Prevost will be able to study the great masters without stealing from
them.

Mr. John Cameron Grant has christened himself 'England's Empire Poet,'
and, lest we should have any doubts upon the subject, tells us that he
'dare not lie,' a statement which in a poet seems to show a great want of
courage. Protection and Paper-Unionism are the gods of Mr. Grant's
idolatry, and his verse is full of such fine fallacies and masterly
misrepresentations that he should be made Laureate to the Primrose League
at once. Such a stanza as--

Ask the ruined Sugar-worker if he loves the foreign beet--
Rather, one can hear him answer, would I see my children eat--

would thrill any Tory tea-party in the provinces, and it would be
difficult for the advocates of Coercion to find a more appropriate or a
more characteristic peroration for a st