e first of these two masterpieces does not make us long for any
further acquaintance with the school. Here is a specimen from the fourth
act of the fate-tragedy.

SCENE VIII.

ELVIRA. HUGO.

ELVIRA (after long silence, leaving the harp, steps to Hugo, and seeks
his gaze).

HUGO (softly). Though I made sacrifice of thy sweet life. The Father
has forgiven. Can the wife--Forgive?

ELVIRA (on his breast). She can!

HUGO (with all the warmth of love). Dear wife!

ELVIRA (after a pause, in deep sorrow). Must it be so, beloved one?

HUGO (sorry to have betrayed himself). What?

In his preface to The Circle of Seasons, a series of hymns and verses for
the seasons of the Church, the Rev. T. B. Dover expresses a hope that
this well-meaning if somewhat tedious book 'may be of value to those many
earnest people to whom the subjective aspect of truth is helpful.' The
poem beginning

Lord, in the inn of my poor worthless heart
Guests come and go; but there is room for Thee,

has some merit and might be converted into a good sonnet. The majority
of the poems, however, are quite worthless. There seems to be some
curious connection between piety and poor rhymes.

Lord Henry Somerset's verse is not so good as his music. Most of the
Songs of Adieu are marred by their excessive sentimentality of feeling
and by the commonplace character of their weak and lax form. There is
nothing that is new and little that is true in verse of this kind:

The golden leaves are falling,
Falling one by one,
Their tender 'Adieux' calling
To the cold autumnal sun.
The trees in the keen and frosty air
Stand out against the sky,
'Twould seem they stretch their branches bare
To Heaven in agony.

It can be produced in any quantity. Lord Henry Somerset has too much
heart and too little art to make a good poet, and such art as he does
possess is devoid of almost every intellectual quality and entirely
lacking in any intellectual strength. He has nothing to say and says it.

Mrs. Cora M. Davis is eloquent about the splendours of what the authoress
of The Circle of Seasons calls 'this earthly ball.'

Let's sing the beauties of this grand old earth,

she cries, and proceeds to tell how

Imagination paints old Egypt's former glory,
Of mighty temples reaching heavenward,
Of grim, colossal statues, whose barbaric story
The caustic pens of er