to every son and
grandson of Britain; there are bodied forth the eternal and unchanging
traditions that place above the rest of the world

"This precious stone set in the silver sea--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."

"Meditation of a Scottish Queen on Imprisonment," a poem by Margaret
Trafford, contains noble passages, but is marred by defective technique.
Passing over the use of the expletives =do= and =doth= as legitimate
archaisms in this case, we must call attention to some awkward
phraseology, and to the roughness of certain lines, which have either
too few or too many syllables. The very first line of the poem requires
contraction, which might be accomplished by substituting =hapless= for
=unhappy=. Line 8 would read better if thus amended:

"I would that death might come and me release."

The final line of the first stanza lacks a syllable, which might be
supplied by replacing =vile= with =hateful=. The second stanza will pass
as it is, but the entire remainder of the poem requires alteration,
since but two of the lines are of normal decasyllabic length. The
following is rough revision, though we have not attempted to build the
poetry anew:

Oh! could I breathe again dear Scotland's air;
Behold once more her stately mountains high,
Thence view the wide expanse of azure sky,
Instead of these perpetual walls so bare!

Could I but see the grouse upon the moor,
Or pluck again the beauteous heather bell!
Freedom I know not in this dismal cell,
As I my anguish from my heart outpour.

My Scotland! know'st thou thy poor Queen's distress,
And canst thou hear my wailing and my woe?
May the soft wind that o'er thy hills doth blow
Waft thee these thoughts, that I cannot suppress!

"Six Cylinder Happiness," a brief essay by William J. Dowdell, presents
in ingeniously pleasing style a precept not entirely new amongst
philosophers. Mr. Dowdell's skill with the pen is very considerable,
particularly when he ventures outside the domain of slang. We should
like to suggest a slightly less colloquial title for this piece, such as
"Real Happiness." "For Right and Liberty," a poem by Matthew Hilson, is
commendable in sentiment and clever in construction, but lacks
perfection in several details of phraseology. In the third line of the
third stanza the word =ruinous= must be replaced by a true dissyllable,
preferably =ruin'd=.