The House Among the Hills. (Smith, Elder, and Co.)—These poems
all harp on one theme, a disappointment in love, and are therefore all labelled with the label which forms the title of the volume. The lady who had favoured the author's suit for some reason which is not stated finally declines to accept his hand, and then "his heart moans inces- santly the burden of its misery" for a whole volume in a strain which seems to us rather unmanly and to make use of the name of the Deity with a frequency which is a little offensive. Nothing, however, is further from the writer's thought than profanity. His tone is more like that unctuous spiritualism which Roman Catholic divines so often affect. The verses are often not without beauty :— " Ah! could she but have known, have felt, The love intense that in me dwelt, E'en now her heart had learned to melt ; For in my pangs of keen distress Was not one tinge of bitterness,
Nor thought of loving her the less,.—
No pulse of anger or disdain ;— But an unfathomed deep of pain, A grief that must thro' life remain."
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