Fall) are
very charming, and though, as a whole, Love's Widowhood is tedious and
prolix, still it contains some very felicitous touches. We wish,
however, that Mr. Austin would not write such lines as

Pippins of every sort, and _codlins manifold_.

'Codlins manifold' is a monstrous expression.

Mr. W. J. Linton's fame as a wood-engraver has somewhat obscured the
merits of his poetry. His Claribel and Other Poems, published in 1865,
is now a scarce book, and far more scarce is the collection of lyrics
which he printed in 1887 at his own press and brought out under the title
of Love-Lore. The large and handsome volume that now lies before us
contains nearly all these later poems as well as a selection from
Claribel and many renderings, in the original metre, of French poems
ranging from the thirteenth century to our own day. A portrait of Mr.
Linton is prefixed, and the book is dedicated 'To William Bell Scott, my
friend for nearly fifty years.' As a poet Mr. Linton is always fanciful
with a studied fancifulness, and often felicitous with a chance felicity.
He is fascinated by our seventeenth-century singers, and has, here and
there, succeeded in catching something of their quaintness and not a
little of their charm. There is a pleasant flavour about his verse. It
is entirely free from violence and from vagueness, those two besetting
sins of so much modern poetry. It is clear in outline and restrained in
form, and, at its best, has much that is light and lovely about it. How
graceful, for instance, this is!

BARE FEET

O fair white feet! O dawn-white feet
Of Her my hope may claim!
Bare-footed through the dew she came
Her Love to meet.

Star-glancing feet, the windflowers sweet
Might envy, without shame,
As through the grass they lightly came,
Her Love to meet.

O Maiden sweet, with flower-kiss'd feet!
My heart your footstool name!
Bare-footed through the dew she came,
Her Love to meet.

'Vindicate Gemma!' was Longfellow's advice to Miss Heloise Durant when
she proposed to write a play about Dante. Longfellow, it may be
remarked, was always on the side of domesticity. It was the secret of
his popularity. We cannot say, however, that Miss Durant has made us
like Gemma better. She is not exactly the Xantippe whom Boccaccio
describes, but she is very boring, for all that:

GEMMA. The more thou meditat'st, more mad art thou.
Clow