christened
him the Laureate of Hindostan and that the Allahabad Pioneer once
compared him to Keats. He is a pleasant rhymer, as rhymers go, and,
though we strongly object to his putting the Song of Solomon into bad
blank verse, still we are quite ready to admire his translations of the
Pervigilium Veneris and of Omar Khayyam. We wish he would not write
sonnets with fifteen lines. A fifteen-line sonnet is as bad a
monstrosity as a sonnet in dialogue. The volume has the merit of being
very small, and contains many stanzas quite suitable for valentines.

Finally we come to Procris and Other Poems, by Mr. W. G. Hole. Mr. Hole
is apparently a very young writer. His work, at least, is full of
crudities, his syntax is defective, and his grammar is questionable. And
yet, when all is said, in the one poem of Procris it is easy to recognise
the true poetic ring. Elsewhere the volume is amateurish and weak. The
Spanish Main was suggested by a leader in the Daily Telegraph, and bears
all the traces of its lurid origin. Sir Jocellyn's Trust is a sort of
pseudo-Tennysonian idyll in which the damozel says to her gallant
rescuer, 'Come, come, Sir Knight, I catch my death of cold,' and
recompenses him with

What noble minds
Regard the first reward,--an orphan's thanks.

Nunc Dimittis is dull and The Wandering Jew dreadful; but Procris is a
beautiful poem. The richness and variety of its metaphors, the music of
its lines, the fine opulence of its imagery, all seem to point to a new
poet. Faults, it is true, there are in abundance; but they are faults
that come from want of trouble, not from want of taste. Mr. Hole shows
often a rare and exquisite sense of beauty and a marvellous power of
poetic vision, and if he will cultivate the technique of his craft a
little more we have no doubt but that he will some day give us work
worthy to endure. It is true that there is more promise than perfection
in his verse at present, yet it is a promise that seems likely to be
fulfilled.

(1) Stories of Wicklow. By George Francis Armstrong, M.A. (Longmans,
Green and Co.)

(2) Somnia Medici. By John A. Goodchild. Second Series. (Kegan Paul.)

(3) Verses: Translated and Original. By H. E. Keene. (W. H. Allen and
Co.)

(4) Procris and Other Poems. By W. G. Hole. (Kegan Paul.)

SOME NOVELS

(Pall Mall Gazette, April 14, 1886.)

After a careful perusal of 'Twixt Love and Duty, by Mr. Tighe Hopkins, we
conf