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Rhymes Atween Times. By Thomas MacKellar. Philadelphia: J.B.
Lippincott &Co.

When we find actually embalmed in a book the simple and touching song,
"Let me kiss him for his mother," our first inclination is to take all
its merit for granted and hurry by, capping the matter as we pass with
the inevitable quotation which also begins with a _let me_, and refers
to making the songs of a people, with infinitive contempt for the
adjustment of their laws. The people for whom Mr. MacKellar's ballad
was made, being young women in ringlets who press the suburban piano,
have, we may reasonably hope, small need of the law any how, and
we may be pretty sure that the verses which have touched the great
popular heart are made in a spirit which is better than any law, even
the law of metre. On reading attentively the poem in question we
find a touching theme handled with simplicity, and in a certain sense
earning its popular place, though no poem could possibly be so good
as the simple fact--an ancient woman in a hospital at New Orleans
arresting the coffin-lid they were placing over a young fever-patient
from the North with the natural impulse, "Stop! let me kiss him for
his mother!" That little sunbeam of pure feeling, sent straight from
the affections of the people, is the real poet in the affair, though
Mr. MacKellar has succeeded in investing himself with its simplicity,
supporting his subject with tenderness and directness. When a writer
happens, with luck in his theme and luck in his mood, to strike such
a keynote, he is astonished in a moment by a mighty and impressive
diapason, a whole nation breaking into song at the bid of his whisper.
Mr. MacKellar doubtless would think it strange, and a little hard to
be told, that this trifle outweighs the whole bulk, body and sum of
his collection. He is a writer of old acceptance and experience, who
began to rhyme long ago in _Neal's Gazette_, with "occasional verses"
about "no poetry in a hat"--a question which was bandied, in the
fashion of the times, through half a dozen assertions and replies,
assisted by voluntaries from the public. A stage-ride from New York
to Singsing at that day was something of an adventure, affording a
subject for six cantos, which Neal was doubtless very glad to get for
his journal. Neal's death, and the parting with Henry Reed and Dr.
Kane, with some other local changes, extracted short laments from the
author, whose tone is nev