k is no single poem that is in it, but the
strong humane personality that stands behind both flawless and faulty
work alike, and looks out through many masks, some of them beautiful, and
some grotesque, and not a few misshapen. In the case with most of our
modern poets, when we have analysed them down to an adjective, we can go
no further, or we care to go no further; but with this book it is
different. Through these reeds and pipes blows the very breath of life.
It seems as if one could put one's hand upon the singer's heart and count
its pulsations. There is something wholesome, virile and sane about the
man's soul. Anybody can be reasonable, but to be sane is not common; and
sane poets are as rare as blue lilies, though they may not be quite so
delightful.

Let the great winds their worst and wildest blow,
Or the gold weather round us mellow slow;
We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare,
And we can conquer, though we may not share
In the rich quiet of the afterglow,
What is to come,

is the concluding stanza of the last rondeau--indeed, of the last poem in
the collection, and the high, serene temper displayed in these lines
serves at once as keynote and keystone to the book. The very lightness
and slightness of so much of the work, its careless moods and casual
fancies, seem to suggest a nature that is not primarily interested in
art--a nature, like Sordello's, passionately enamoured of life, one to
which lyre and lute are things of less importance. From this mere joy of
living, this frank delight in experience for its own sake, this lofty
indifference, and momentary unregretted ardours, come all the faults and
all the beauties of the volume. But there is this difference between
them--the faults are deliberate, and the result of much study; the
beauties have the air of fascinating impromptus. Mr. Henley's healthy,
if sometimes misapplied, confidence in the myriad suggestions of life
gives him his charm. He is made to sing along the highways, not to sit
down and write. If he took himself more seriously, his work would become
trivial.

_A Book of Verses_. By William Ernest Henley. (David Nutt.)

SOME LITERARY LADIES
(_Woman's World_, January 1889.)

In a recent article on _English Poetesses_, I ventured to suggest that
our women of letters should turn their attention somewhat more to prose
and somewhat less to poetry. Women seem to me to possess just wha