NEW BOOKS.

POEMS. By Oscar Wilde. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1881. Small 8vo. Pp. 230. Price, $1.25.

It is not given to those of us who dwell in this trans-Atlantic Philistia to gaze spell-bound on the pictures of Maudle; but Mr. Oscar Wilde has kindly yielded to the pressing entreaties of those angular and sharp-featured maidens to whom, seated on low stools, "clinging closely together, thinking of fair lilies," clad in sad-colored garments and with hand-clasped knees, he has read his verses; and (aided by Messrs. Roberts Brothers,) he has thus brought within the reach of all the immortal "poesy" of Postlethwaite. What "too-venturous poesy," as Mr. Wilde characterizes his verses, may mean to him, we know not; but, as interpreted by our understanding of his efforts, we should take it to be a diluted sort of verse feebly imitative at one time of Milton and Tennyson, and at another time of Robert Browning and Swinburne, with a substratum of twaddle seasoned with some blasphemy and more indecency, and garnished with a liberal sprinkling of classic names and with constantly recurring references to "asphodels," "shivering trees," and "shimmering skies.'

Mr. Wilde fitly sings

"'Tis I, 'tis I, whose soul is as the reed,
Which has no message of its own to play,
So pipes another's bidding."

One or two prosaic sonnets are after-very far after,-Milton. In some of his descriptive passages, he suggests, but very faintly, Robert Browning. Here and there is a simile which reminds one of Tennyson; but it is not Tennyson at his best. In his fondness. for classical allusions, he follows Swinburne, but, unlike Swinburne, he has failed to imbue himself with the spirit of Greek poetry, and he rivals Swinburne only as Mr. Mallock rivals those French writers whose indecency he has transferred to his pages, but whose wit he has been content to regard as inimitable.

Like good prose,

Poetry means something more than form. it must have both form and substance; but it differs from prose in that it must have, as the condition of and the excuse for its existence, ideas which cannot find adequate expression in prose. Tried by this test, Mr. Wilde's verses fall far short of poetry.

We are not Puritanical. We do not insist that the subjects of literature should be only those which can properly be the topics of general discussion among men and women of culture and refinement. On the contrary, we admit that there are social forces and individual passions which are important factors in modern

civilization, and which may very properly become subjects of artistic literary treatment, and which can be and ought to be discussed in such a spirit and in such a manner that the most modest reader will not be forced to blush. But we are far from admitting that sensuous descriptions of the gratification of merely animal passions-for such is in plain words the subject of much of Mr. Wilde's song,-ought to find a place in any literary work which appeals to the critical judgment of civilized countries. Morality apart, all men are now agreed that the chief distinction between barbarism and civilization is in the less or greater restraint that is put upon the gratification of individual passions.

There is an air of artificiality and unreality, too, about Mr. Wilde's passions and sorrows. He has that vague feeling that the world is going wrong which so generally arises in a very young man who, on the morning after a late supper, turns away from an untasted breakfast. His enthusiasm for humanity and liberty is that of the aristocratic radical who, riding in his well-appointed brougham, or looking from the window of an exclusive club, discourses upon the equality of men, and applauds those who die fighting at the barricades. His passion seems to have a merely physical basis, for of that pure love which finds adequate expression in the unselfish devotion of a life, he does not sing.

Mr. Wilde does not anywhere rise above the level of the college prize poem, nor does it seem to us that he gives any promise of future excellence when time and training shall have eliminated the faults of youth. He has not "climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day," nor can we hope that from the "wildness" of his "wasted passion" he will strike "a better, clearer song." We fear that it must be true that Mr. Gilbert, when he sang "Hollow, hollow, hollow," was thinking of Mr. Wilde's poems. Yet it is but fair to say that there are here and there lines, and even stanzas, which, though they are not poetry of a high order, are free from the defects we have pointed out, and are turned with sufficient nicety and prettiness to constitute them tolerable vers de societé. The opening stanzas of the "Garden of Eros" and the "Serenade" seem to us to be the best part of the book, and illustrate this phase of Mr. Wilde's muse.

Mr. Wilde sings sadly of

How barren may be the memory of unkissed kisses, cannot, of course, be known to hard-hearted writers of reviews; but we feel sure that all who read Mr. Wilde's verses would rejoice if the assurance could be given them that Mr. Wilde would write no more such poems, and that they might have the barren memory of songs never to be sung by him.

A ROMANCE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By William H. Mallock. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Mr. Mallock delights in surprises, and seems to have chosen as his favorite pastime the pleasure of disappointing those whom ne has led to fancy that he is championing their cause. In his New Republic, and in his Is Life Worth Living? he handled the Agnostics in a style more pointed than delicate; in his New Paul and Virginia, he even descended into coarseness-if not in language, at all events in the situations. But, as if regretting the violence of his attacks, or unwilling to enable the side that has, up to a certain point, been congratulating itself on having found a clever, brilliant advocate, to enjoy its triumph, he usually presents the counter-statement in reductio ad absurdum. The pious reader who has at the start laughed with him at Agnostics, Materialists and Positivists, finds in the end that Mr. Mallock has suggested a remedy for sickly doubt that many would regard as far worse than the disease he has pretended to combat. The impression left is that the author is laughing in his sleeve at both sides, and that, if there be any inference to be drawn from his writings, it is that the question, "What is truth?" is no nearer solution than before Mr. Mallock took it up. As an inevitable result, there is a sense of insincerity and flippancy, and a feeling that no cause is strengthened by his championship.

In his latest literary venture, A Romance of the Nineteenth Century, Mr. Mallock plays just such fantastic tricks in the domain of morals as he erstwhile amused himself with while treating of questions of faith. It may here be remarked that he dwells most lovingly on the type of character that has been so steeped in selfindulgence as to have become sated with life-men with an abundance of leisure, but no aim, and who, instead of busying themselves with doing the right, give themselves to maunderings about religion, in which sentiment and pseudo-philosophy are mixed in about equal proportions. In so far as these self-communings give voice to the doubts that many thinking men and women have passed through, or perhaps still dwell in, they possess a certain human interest. In the end, however, the record of such impressions becomes tiresome, and Mr. Mallock has, in the book before us, undoubtedly reached the point at which the reader becomes fatigued. Besides, there is a striking incongruity between the subject of religion and the character of the story itself.

There are books of which it has been said that "they leave a bad taste in the mouth." Of A Romance of the Nineteenth Century, it may be said that it is unsavory throughout. The critics who have found fault with Mr. Mallock because of his dealing with the unspeakable, may be answered that they have committed the error of losing sight of his object in writing his romance.

If

he has succeeded in his intention, the work has, according to the canons of a certain school of criticism, justified itself.

And what may this intention have been? For ourselves, we can discover nothing beyond a super-serviceable desire to furnish the English public with the sort of highly-seasoned and unhealthy reading for which it has hitherto been obliged to resort to the writings of certain French authors. While we cannot deny that the task has been accomplished with a certain degree of cleverness, we can only regret that Mr. Mallock has employed his undoubted talent on work that, from the standpoint of good morals,— which is equally that of good sense,-was not worth doing.

BABY RUE. HER ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES, HER FRIENDS AND HER ENEMIES. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

8vo., pp. 318.

This is the latest edition to the second series of the "No Name" novels, and, like most of those which have gone before it, is a very readable book. It was a very happy thought of Messrs. Roberts. Brothers to give us this series of novels; for not only is additional zest given to the reading of a story when the reader is curious to know who wrote it, but there is good service done to the cause of literature by thus "bringing out" authors whose work, submitted in this way to the public criticism, when once stamped with the approval of the reading public, secures for them a good place in the field of literary labor. Moreover, the publication of such a series of books helps to bring up the standard of novel-writing, and makes it much better than in the days of the yellow-covered novels, when so large a proportion of the works of fiction given to the public were the veriest trash. One peculiar charm of the No Name" novels is that they are really light reading, in the best sense of the term; bright and clever stories, which are really entertaining because they are neither dull nor harrowing to the feelings of the reader. This is the kind of reading the American people need, especially in the summer season, as means of relaxation to over-taxed brains, and as helps to the rest of over-worked bodies. Baby Rue is just a book of this sort. It is cleverly written, and deals with characters and events, always of interest to American people, gathered from the military life on the Western frontier forty years ago; and it deals also to some extent with the "Indian Question,"--that very large question to which, in those forty years, we have been able to give so very small an answer. The principal hero of the story is Lieutenant Leszinksky, the lineal descendant of one of the princely houses of Warsaw, whose grandfather, the Count de Deux Ponts, came over to our country in 1777 with the Marquis de Lafayette, and cast his fortunes with the Continentals in the Revolutionary War. This Lieutenant Leszinksky marries the daughter of one of the oldest of the Virginia families, and Ruchiel, the Baby Rue whose name gives title to the book,

is their child. The incidents of the story arise on the Western frontier, where Leszinksky is ordered for duty, and present an interesting picture of life in those places and in those days, as well as delineations of the character of some of the noted Indian chiefs of that time. Baby Rue, though a little personage, has a very marked personality, in which the author seems to take delight in tracing the strong points of character inherited through many generations from King Stanislaus, her Polish ancestor of the eighteenth century. It is probable that the book will be very well received, and it certainly compares very favorably with the others of the series in which it is published.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

The American Jewish Pulpit. A collection of sermons by the most eminent American Rabbis. Cloth. 8vo. Pp. 242. Price $2.00. Cincinnati: Bloch & Co. The Mineral Resources of the Hocking Valley. By T. Sterry Hunt, L.L.D. 8vo. Swd. Pp. 151. Boston: S. E. Cassino.

A Digest of the Law of Bills of Exchange, Promissory Notes and Checks. By M. D. Chalmers, M. A.; rewritten and adapted to the law as it exists in the United States. By W. E. Benjamin, A. M. Sheep. 8vo. Pp. 328. Chicago: Callaghan & Co.