forms of literature should ever bring the
two names into conjunction.

Mr. Dobson has produced work that is absolutely classical in its
exquisite beauty of form. Nothing more artistically perfect in its way
than the _Lines to a Greek Girl_ has been written in our time. This
little poem will be remembered in literature as long as _Thyrsis_ is
remembered, and _Thyrsis_ will never be forgotten. Both have that note
of distinction that is so rare in these days of violence, exaggeration
and rhetoric. Of course, to suggest, as Mr. Matthews does, that Mr.
Dobson's poems belong to 'the literature of power' is ridiculous. Power
is not their aim, nor is it their effect. They have other qualities, and
in their own delicately limited sphere they have no contemporary rivals;
they have none even second to them.

The heroine is a sort of well-worn Becky Sharp, only much more beautiful
than Becky, or at least than Thackeray's portraits of her, which,
however, have always seemed to me rather ill-natured. I feel sure that
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was extremely pretty, and I have never understood how
it was that Thackeray could caricature with his pencil so fascinating a
creation of his pen.

A critic recently remarked of Adam Lindsay Gordon that through him
Australia had found her first fine utterance in song. This, however, is
an amiable error. There is very little of Australia in Gordon's poetry.
His heart and mind and fancy were always preoccupied with memories and
dreams of England and such culture as England gave him. He owed nothing
to the land of his adoption. Had he stayed at home he would have done
much better work.

That Australia, however, will some day make amends by producing a poet of
her own we cannot doubt, and for him there will be new notes to sound and
new wonders to tell of.

The best that we can say of him is that he wrote imperfectly in Australia
those poems that in England he might have made perfect.

Judges, like the criminal classes, have their lighter moments.

There seems to be some curious connection between piety and poor rhymes.

The South African poets, as a class, are rather behind the age. They
seem to think that 'Aurora' is a very novel and delightful epithet for
the dawn. On the whole they depress us.

The only original thing in the volume is the description of Mr. Robert
Buchanan's 'grandeur of mind.' This is decidedly new.

Dr. Cockle tells us that Mullner's _Guilt_ and _The Ancestr