Reviews And Reviews.

REVIEWS AND REVIEWS .

TT is amusing sometimes to note the " current" of contemporary reviews , - " - and to see both in what they excel , and in what they exceed . Those of us Avho have read " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers " in other clays , —for it is but seldom we fancy it is read now , its interest having passed away , and its allusions being only half understood , —will Tememberto what indignation Lord Byron was wrought up by a " savage " and unappreciative notice of his early

"poems , " b y the great "Edinburgh Review . " Some of us , too , may call to mind Lord Macaulay ' s " scathing" if unjust review of poor " Satan , " Montgomery , and even now may realize what it is to fall under the " lash " of a competent , or incompetent reviewer . No doubt Ave all get over the hard words and " unappreciative ignorances " of some "dunderhead" who neither felt the " powers" or entered even

, , into the meaning of our own little "poem , " or " animated prose . " And after a little we forget the little " contretemps , " ancl smile ( if savagely , perchance ) at the iveakness , or the want of taste of " that unfair re-viewer . " We took up a well-known contemporary of ours the other day , aud we found some " gems " of reviewing ivhich ive think it worth while to commend to the notice of our readers . The following is a week's normal revieAV of the

" poetry" which comes before a most successful journal , in such rapid , and , to our minds , unhealthy profusion . Let us listen to the " critic " on this new " Poiesis , " and we may say , " en passant , " that we have no reason to doubt either the faithfulness and the fairness of these reviews , though we may be struck with their turseness and pithiness—commendable characteristic of all reviews—and even feel ourselves

, , slightly discomposed at their " plain speaking . " Iu Newmarket slang , there is no want here of a " straight tip . " HOAV excessively pleased ancl flattered the " writer " will be when he reacts the following very appreciative notice of his " Songs of Passion and Pain ? " We cannot feel sorry for him . Can our kind readers ?

Mr . Ernest Wilding , the author of " Songs of Passion and Pain " ( Newman ) , must be a very silly young gentleman , and it is rather a pity that his schoolmaster , —he can only have been at an " Academy , "—did not look over his verses as well as his letters home . The results , however , might have been corporeally disastrous . The poems (?) are " quite too awfully utter , " and consequently , it need hardly be said , beneath contempt . Here are a few of the titles , —" Study in White and Blood" ( sic ) , " Harmony in Sea and Silver , "—why does this suggest soapsuds ?—and " Nocturne in AVhite and Silver" What did the boy think he

. meant ! It is high time to protest , once and for all , against the wretched , emasculate , unchristian folly ivhich finds its exposition iu such sickening trash as this . Mr . Wilding's method of making blank verse is obviously to count ont ten syllables upon his fingers ; whilst for such a piece as " Best" the recipe is , —Take a few plagiarisms and hash them up with original rubbish , —it begins " Far from the maddening crowd , " and shortly after we have , "After life ' s fitful fever !"

The veteran poet , R . H . Home , ivell known to some of us , does not seem to please his reviewer . For the sake of the magnificent work which the author has done in bygone days we are inclined to speak leniently of " Bible Tragedies , " by Richard Hengisfc Home ( Newman ) , but must confess to a wish that the veteran poet had rested on his well-earned laurels . Of the two plays proper , —which are supposed to be modelled upon the old Mysteries , —the

subjects are " St . John the Baptist" and " Judas Iscariot , " and the latter is in eveiy respect the better . The third piece is a strange imitation of Biblical literature , entitled " Rahman , " and professes to deal with Job ' s wife , but Ave fail to see in what the interest consists , and the diction is not always in keeping . Some of the utterances of St . John the Baptist