Review.

REVIEW .

A START IN AUTHOR-LIFE *

• '' Poeta nascitur non fit " is not a saying of yesterday , it has been written a good many times , and passed the mouths of many other than its author . It may be true , and it may not ; but in cither case , or indeed if it be partly right

and partly wrong , or sometimes true and sometimes false , it will still do capitally as the starting-point of the few remarks we have to make on " A Start in Author-Life . " " Everybody must have a beginning " is as " old as the hills , " and just as certain as that the hills , old and established though they be , had . onee a beginning too . As with them , then , so with our fledgeling author ; he must have a start , and it matters not one atom whether " the poet" shall have been " born " such or gradually

"become" so , for when he ¦ will essay to make Hs poivers known he must have a start . Than this start there is nothing more difficult to the aspirant for literary fame . To be told that there are plenty of openings to the man , however young , whose name is made , is precisely like the answer given to a schoolfellow of ours who desired to batheby a timid father : " You shall not go into the ^ water till you can swim ! " Bui

, all this is very hard upon young writers , for how , in this case , are they ever to make a start at all ? One might say , " How about the reputations that have been made in the world of literature ? I suppose that all these men have made a start ? " Yes—ive reply—bv . t what a heart-breaking affair it has been ! How many a weary hour ' s labour thrown away ivhen the MS . of the juvenile author has , over and over again , been consigned-to

that literary tomb the waste-paper basket ! How many a young man of promise has been disheartened and disgusted and turned back from the race altogether ! Next it strikes us that young authors would do well if they would be content with somewhat less ambitious aspirations at first . Icarus would not have met with ( he sorry fate he did if he had tried a shorter distance ; and so if the . young poet ' s waxen pinions are to be melted at all by tho fierce sun-rays of popular criticism , it is better for him that ho should fall on his feet on solid ground , whence he may , if he will , make a fresh start , than that he should descend breathlessly from his giddy height into the cold waters of scornful oblivion ivhich engulf him at , once and for ever .

Why , then , should there not be some literary nursery , some publication in which tryers could make their first attempts ?—when lo , as we ask the question , the postman answers it in the most practical manner by putting into our hands The Poet ' s Magazine . We need , after thus introducing it , say no more of it than that the execution of its object is as excellent as the conception of it is unique . Of its matter ive may ,

however , say a few words . The September number , then , of The Poet ' s Magazine , with which we have been favoured , is , as we are glad to see , the commencement of the fifth volume ; this alone speaks well for the public appreciation , ancl therefore success , of the venture . Of the matter of which the Magazine consists , we notice that there is a most judicious blending of prose and poetry , of the sober and the humorous , the former , at times , reaching even the height of reli gious fervour ; when we add that all is pervaded