The number of lucky poets whom the mantle of the silver tongued Victorian singers has fallen is surprising to those who are not acquainted with the many by-paths on the slopes of Parnassus. They flourish in all grades of society, and, unlike the average disciples, their creations equal, and in some cases even surpass, their glorious forerunners, Mr. Roland Hill has several books of verse to his credit and he writes from the elegant security of the Junior Constitutional Club. Mr. John W. Mayer, B-A.P.A. (Bardley Amateur Poetic Association), is the locat bard of the town of Bardsley in Lancashire. Mrs, Lean's spirit has been reincarnated in Roland, while the charm and lyric fervour) of the author of an International Poem in Three Parts, quite undimmed in the composite ins of John Mayer.
The Happy Traveller is the title of the volume before us written by Roland Hill, and it is finely printed by the Arden Press of Letch-we a circumstance to be mentioned as most singers of this schoo] seem very unfortunate in the general get-up of their welcome volumes, Tue Wuiskerep Baxp.
Mr. Hill's portly figure forms an elegant frontispiece to the volume in question. He is a whiskered gentleman of middle age somewhat more suited in years to the temp! ed frivolities of the Senior Constitutional Club than its gay offspring, but, old as one may be in years no one could deny the youth of his art, He singe, This body ripened in the sun Hath fifty years of birth, T have not wasted them; but run Rejoicing through the earth.
To Chins of Confucious To Pelcing from Hongkong Where oid religions puzzle us With burr of ancient wrong.
We stirred the maple leaf; we stirred Long cornfields with our wind, Of buffaloes we chased a herd Left bellowing behind.
To visions of my youthful years I'm constant to the end.
Still every maid @ bride appears; And every man a friend.
If sickness or rheumatic schos Compe) restraint; anew The mountains come te me; the lakes Return mp visits too.
How haunting that lovely line is "Still every maid a bride appears." To look at the Bond Street perfec. tion of those beautiful clothes in the frontispiece and envisage the sun-ripened body beneath, stirring the cornfield with its wind, casting! its jocund eye estimatingly ove each passing maid, how Victorian is the zest, how Keatsian the express sion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.