The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-19 00:00:00

LITERILTURB.

Ten Miles from Town. With Poems. By William
Sawyer. Ono Vol. Pp. 152. W. Freeman.

Little volumes of poetry. (so-called) are as plen-
tiful as blackberries. In se ►son and out of season
they crop forth by the way-side not only abun-
dantly but over-abundantly. To take note of even
the majority of them would be a thing almost im-
practicable. The mere endeavour to keep pace
with them, we have long ago " given up," like a
bad conundrum. Once in a way, however, a book
answering the external appearance of " merely
another of them"—more than justifies us, as in the
present instance, by the exceptional charm of its
contents, in notifying, as an incident in regard to
current literature really worthy of notification, the
pleasant fact of its publication. " Ten Miles from
Town"—let us say it at once—appears to us
to be not a hundred miles from Parnassus.
Here, however, we must perforce take exception upon
the instant to the author's own designation of his
little volume upon its title-page. "Ten Miles from
Town—[he calls it] With Poems"—as though the Ten
Miles from Town (the sectional portion of the con-
tents so defined) were not Poems like the rest of the
book I Now, it is precisely to this that we would
direct our exception —Ten Miles from Town being
as much Poems iu themselves as any other divisional
part of the volume. Several of these poems have
appeared already from time to time in one or other
of the magazines—in the Cornhill, in Temple
Bar, in London Society, in the Shilling Ma-
gazine. These, however, have not only been
here collected together for the first time, but have
been enriched with others not previously given
to the public by their author—the reprints even
having been subjected by him, as he intimates in hit
prefatory note, to very careful revision. The
labour thus devoted by the writer (evidently, with
him, a labour of love), to the revising, extending,
and generally improving and enhancing the value
of the collection, as a whole, has not been thrown
away—the result being eminently satisfactory.
Mr. Sawyer's little book, in effect, is just in one
word—charming. If all the other volumes of
verse that come showering from the press, year
after year, were only one-half as good, the task of
taking note of them would be a pleasant task
indeed. Perhaps it is the consciousness we have
upon us of the contrast presented to view by
the vast majority of them that enhances our sense
of satisfaction, when welcoming effusions such
as these, effusions that bear about them more
of heart than of artifice. Their writer,
though in himself wholly unknown to us—
though merely, in our regard, but as a name
upon a title-page—we cannot but feel certain has
herein revealed himself quite truthfully to our re-
cognition (as among the number of his readers),
as an observer of nature and a lover of his kind
endowed with very keen perceptions of, and the
tenderest sympathy for, all that is good and beautiful
in a world that he thus contrives to show has been
hitherto, for him, brimming over with both. We
hope that, before much longer, he will, by some
more ambitious adventure as a poetic aspirant, giro
us occasion to welcome his reappearance.
ANIHONY TROLLOPE'S Sixpenny Weekly Serial
Story of " The Last Chronicle of Barset" is now
half finished—the first volume having just been
published by the Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. of
Cornhill. Up to this time it has certainly made
good its claim to be regarded as about the very best
among all the numerous fictions penned by our
popular novelist. At the close of volume one, our
old friend (or enemy shall we call him ?) Adolphus
Crosbie is left in the direst plight as to pecuniary
difficulties. Apropos to which our author says

sagaciously :
" I know no more uncomfortable walking than that
which falls to the lot of men who go into the City to look
for money, and who find none. Of all the lost steps
trodden by men, surely the steps lost after that fashion are
the most melancholy. It is not only that they aro so vain,
but that they are accompanied by so killing a sense of
shame ! To wait about in clingy rooms, which look on to
bare walls, and are approached through some Hook-court;
or to keep appointments at a low coffee-house, to which
try stings the money-lender will not trouble himself to
come unless it pleases him ; to be civil, almost suppliant,
to a cunning knave whom the borrower loathes; to bo
refused thrice, and then cheated with his eyes open on the
fourth attempt ; to submit himself to vulgarity of the
foulest kind, and to have to seem to like it ; to be badgered,
reviled, and at last accused of want of honesty by the most
fraudulent of mankind ; and at the same time to be clearly
conscious of the ruin that is coining—this is the fate of
him who goes into the City to find money, not knowing
where it is to be found!"

The upshot of the whole plot we expect will be this
—that Johnny Eames will be the Deus ex Machina
clearing among all the difficulties—comiog to
Adolphus Crosbie's relief at the last gasp, and de-
monstrating the innocence of Mr. Crawley from
the charge of petty felony brought against him,
effecting this by the evidence obtained by Johnny
from the Arabins—Lily Dale of course rewarding
all this by giving her hand at last to Johnny Eames
as her chosen husband.

THE DAY.—Another New Penny Morning con-
temporary, under the above title, has this day,
March 19, made its first appearance. Constitu-
tional Liberalism—" not to put too fine a point
upon it "—is its avowed policy. Judging of its
character from a single number we should be dis-
posed to augur very favourably for its chances of
success. For, The Day has not only dawned
4, true to time," according to its announce-
ment, but in doing so has made, as it seems to
us, a very brilliant first appearance. The Parlia-
mentary reports are morn than simply credit-
able ; they are remarkable for their accuracy and
their copiousness. It is only, perhaps, in the
natural course of things, however, it may be said,
that The Sun should shine upon The Day when The
Day makes its first appearance.