rather a poem than a
_proces-verbal_; and though it lays bare to us the mere misery of life,
it suggests something of life's mystery also. Very delicate, too, is the
handling of external Nature. There are no formal guide-book descriptions
of scenery, nor anything of what Byron petulantly called 'twaddling about
trees,' but we seem to breathe the atmosphere of the country, to catch
the exquisite scent of the beanfields, so familiar to all who have ever
wandered through the Oxfordshire lanes in June; to hear the birds singing
in the thicket, and the sheep-bells tinkling from the hill.

Characterization, that enemy of literary form, is such an essential part
of the method of the modern writer of fiction, that Nature has almost
become to the novelist what light and shade are to the painter--the one
permanent element of style; and if the power of _A Village Tragedy_ be
due to its portrayal of human life, no small portion of its charm comes
from its Theocritean setting.

_A Village Tragedy_. By Margaret L. Woods. (Bentley and Son.)

MR. MORRIS'S COMPLETION OF THE _ODYSSEY_
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, November 24, 1887.)

Mr. Morris's second volume brings the great romantic epic of Greek
literature to its perfect conclusion, and although there can never be an
ultimate translation of either _Iliad_ or _Odyssey_, as each successive
age is sure to find pleasure in rendering the two poems in its own manner
and according to its own canons of taste, still it is not too much to say
that Mr. Morris's version will always be a true classic amongst our
classical translations. It is not, of course, flawless. In our notice
of the first volume we ventured to say that Mr. Morris was sometimes far
more Norse than Greek, nor does the volume that now lies before us make
us alter that opinion. The particular metre, also, selected by Mr.
Morris, although admirably adapted to express 'the strong-winged music of
Homer,' as far as its flow and freedom are concerned, misses something of
its dignity and calm. Here, it must be admitted, we feel a distinct
loss, for there is in Homer not a little of Milton's lofty manner, and if
swiftness be an essential of the Greek hexameter, stateliness is one of
its distinguishing qualities in Homer's hands. This defect, however, if
we must call it a defect, seems almost unavoidable, as for certain
metrical reasons a majestic movement in English verse is necessarily a
slow movement; and, after all tha