silence with which the first part of it was heard, which passed gradually, from the verse about Rupert's cavaliers I have quoted below, into wild enthusiasm. Dr. Alexander has published much that is excellent since this, witness the two beautiful epitaphs I have quoted, but somehow he seems always to receive an additional afflatus when he approaches his old university. The lines written in 1885 about the Oxford of 1845, mirror it to perfection.

Father RYDER of the Birmingham Oratory is the author of the little but very perfect poem which some, I fancy, will copy into their photographic albums.

Mr. EDMUND GOSSE is well known not only by his poems, but also as an author of widely popular works on literature and criticism. I have chosen his "Charcoal-burner" because I particularly like the subject, but there is a great deal more among his poems which is quite as good.

Mr. JOHNSTONE, a master in the Edinburgh Academy, is the author of the short piece I have placed next to it as being similar in tone, and of much else which he has brought together in a privately printed book called "Echoes and Afterthoughts," full of grace and charm.

Mr. WADDINGTON, who, like Mr. Gosse and Mr. Dobson, has spent many years in the Board of Trade, has written many poems in various styles, but has given perhaps most attention to the sonnet. I have quoted one on "Beatrice."

Mr. LECKY had done enough and more than enough for his own and future generations by his admirable contributions to history and philosophy; but the poem, which he has kindly allowed me to print, seems also, in its own way, altogether excellent.

Mr. GEORGE MEREDITH, the favourite novelist of a section of our contemporaries, has also a considerable following of admirers who delight in his poetry, of which I give a brief but characteristic specimen.

Mr. AUBREY DE VERE has led the ideal poetical life longer and more consistently than any man of our times, and all his work, even when it lacks the qualities which commend verse to most readers, has a certain cachet of elevation not always attained by poets who are more widely read. We all regret deeply that his first volume of "Reminiscences" was not followed by another which promised to be even more interesting.

The name of Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK is familiar to many as that of a great jurist and a man of profound learning, but to comparatively few as that of a poet.

Mr. CHARLES KEGAN PAUL, once widely welcomed in Oxford, London, and many other places, has been prevented by bad health, of late years, from appearing in his old haunts, but he retains the power which in a long past time enabled him to produce the fascinating little poem I have cited under his name.

Mr. HERMAN MERIVALE is the son of a father, who, first at the Colonial and then at the India Office, had an immense influence in the government of the Empire. Possessing the strongest powers of mind and vast knowledge, he had the disadvantages as well as the advantages of a member of the Civil Service; but no one was more highly thought of by those who came across him either as superiors or as colleagues. He was the Permanent while I was the Political UnderSecretary of State for India during five years, so that I had ample opportunities of knowing his real worth and importance. I have been permitted to publish two poems by his son, in different styles, but both of which appear to me to be worthy of his descent from a family which for several generations has been distinguished in letters. The first piece cited belongs

to a very high class indeed.

Mr. COURTHOPE, who till recently was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, is best known as a critic and as the erudite and judicious historian of the art in which he excels. The piece which I have chosen is the account in Spenserian language of Canon Swayne of Salisbury and the unique garden which he formed at that place. It is supposed to be a fragment of the Elizabethan poet's third canto of Mutability.

Passing over two striking poems which are anonymous, I come to the very beautiful lines, not half enough known, entitled "In the Jacquerie," by Mr. SIMCOX.

Sir ALFRED LYALL has taken a most important part in the government of India. While resident in that country, he filled among other great offices those of Foreign Secretary and Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West, and since his return home he has been for many years a Member of the Council of the Secretary of State. That a man who has had such a career should also have published under the modest title of "Verses written in India," some poems which are in their kind simply unequalled, and should have put himself thereby at the head of all the writers of the two great Indian services through three hundred years, is a wonderful achievement.

The very graceful poem by Mrs. EARL, on the death of Mrs. Holland, was originally published in the collection of her letters which appeared under the editorship of her son, Mr. Bernard Holland, one of the most delightful books of recent years.

Mr. WATSON'S tribute to Matthew Arnold is worthy of its subject, and so are the lines on the "Death of Tennyson," by the President of Magdalen, which immediately follow it.

Miss HICKEY'S delightful stanzas, entitled "Harebells," were published in a magazine a few years ago, but the lines which follow them, written in memory of one of the best and wisest men who has lived in our days, appeared in a volume as far back as 1889, and was preceded by another collection of poems dating as far back as 1881.

These are followed by a poem from the pen of Mrs. MEYNELL, and that by the "Christmas Carol" of Miss MAY PROBYN, which has the merits of a picture by the most graceful of early Italian artists. Her volume entitled "Pansies" is full of exquisite things.

After some beautiful verses by the wife of the present British Ambassador at Rome, known in literature by her nom de plume of VIOLET FANE, come some by Mr. BOURDILLON, the work of a poet who speaks only to a small audience, and then an anonymous poem taken from the "Child World," published more than thirty years ago.

No one can say whether the attempt to create a new school of Irish literature will succeed, but the poem which I cite from Mr. YEATS is certainly not commonplace, any more than is the older and very different work of Mr. GRAVES, while the "Songs of the Glens of Antrim," by MOIRA O'NEILL, seem to me quite delicious.

Mr. NEWBOLT sprang into fame by his ballads on the naval glories of England, from which I select one in no way superior to several others in the same small but admirable collection.

Mr. LE GALLIENNE turns as naturally to themes of love as Mr. Newbolt to themes of war.