REVIEW.*

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 808, 24 January 1877, Page 3

REVIEW.*

A few days back we had the pleasure of reviewing a work by this talented author one which we ventured at the time to pre diet would add yet further laurels to his poetic crown. Since then a further contribution to the poesy of Canterbury has appeared from the same pen. The lines under notice, though not of so pretentious a character as his former efforts, are yet redolent of the same deep thought, and marked with that lucidity of expression which is so eminently characteristic of the Willmerian school Indeed, if anything, they are more clearly expressed, and put into language far easier to understand, than the gems we ventured to cull in our last notice. We regret that, entertaining so high an opinion of the author’s talents as a recondite versifier— as evidenced by the remarks made in our late review—we should, in some inexplicable manner, have incurred the weight of Mr Willmer’s displeasure. However, we have this consolation, that our unwitting offence has given the expectant world another opportunity of revelling in the rich mental banquet set before it by Mr Willmer, and that yet one more poem has been added to that collection which will no doubt be read with awe and wonder by admiring posterity. ■ The poet in the lines before us first tunes his lyre to a warlike strain, as thus: —

“ Scurrilous Globe, your gauntlet’s down, And stoop I low to soil my thumb ; Now fight me for a moral crown, Or you or me shall be struck dumb.” The invitation to mortal combat for an insignificant sum is here conveyed in a manner that shows the writer to be a true devotee of the Muses, There may, _ perhaps, be more value in a “moral crown ” than in the mere common coin. This is, however, but another instance of the clear and unam biguous method of expressing himself so peculiarly the author’s own. _ After severely castigating our unoffending journal in several cantos, all of which bear evidence of poetic fire, we come to the following, in which several well-known truths are clothed in expressive and beautiful imagery : “Waste paper’s useful, and how good Is charity when strictly true ? Much labor’s saved in cutting wood, Hard wormwood and the bitter rue. ” We are reluctantly forced to the belief, on perusing these charming lines, that our author, like many others of the guild of poets, has met with an unappreciative public. The touching reference to waste paper, in which doubtless he has had a large experience, and the poetic simile of the bitterness of the feelings of neglected genius to the two herbs is finely put. We confess, however, the reference to the labour saving qualities of wood-cutting is rather beyond us, but that it is a Wilimerism for something noble and high-souled we do not doubt for an instant. But for felicity of expression, and a true conception of what the late Lord Lytton in his younger days called the “True, the Beautiful, and the Ideal,” commend us to the following extract: —

“With truism’s Globism’a unwashed pate, And every low-bred witticism In prints, throughout our Globe’s estate : It's naught save mongrel Globerism.”

The last line, especially, strikes us as being something for us to be proud of, that a Canterbury poet has produced it. We regret that, with the small space at our command, we have been able to do but scant justice to the beauties of this composition. We rise from its perusal with feelings of admiration not unmixed with wonder, and we now more than ever hope to see the works of this talented author given to the world in a collected form, when we feel sure that Mr Tennyson will see that he is but an usurper, and at once resign his Laureateship in favour of Mr Willmer.