The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-08-29
LITERATURE.
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

Mr.. Herman Melville has not been heard
from for several years. Some time since his
stories of adventures attracted considerable
attention, and won him no small fame as
teller of such tales as delighted our boys. He
now appears before the world in the charac-
fer of a poet. His battle pieces belong to
that class of rhyme which have of late more
than over6owcd our country, and any new
contributions must be recommended by some
special excellence to be welcome. Melville
has no special excellence. His conceptions OF
battle are extremely vague, and the move
ment of an army to right or lett depended
principally upon whether the preceding line
ended with bright or "cleft" In his obe-
dience to the established rules of metre, he
rivals the respect paid to law by glpsies. To
show his total disregard to the proper mum
Der of feet, we quote at random some verses
The gloomy hulls, in armor grim,
Like clouds DER moor3 have met,
And prove th II OAK, and iron, and man
Are tough IN hb1eyet
But splendors wane. The seafght yields
No trent OF old display;
The glrniture em mblaZOnment,
And heradry all decay.
Towering a ar in parting light,
The HeGt3 llFG AiDlOlS lOreldn0S sumo
The fuli.3ailCd fleets, the shrouded show
OF ships oi.tlc-l1ne.
On scanning the lines, their glaring errors
become apparent. Again, on page 81, we
find poem which is entitled the "Stone
Fleet" but which is obscured by doubtful
expressions
have feeling for those ships,
Each worn and ancient one
With great b.uT bows, and broad in the beam:
Ey, IL was uuKndly done.
But so they serve the Obsolete
Even so, Stone Fleet!
The metre is sacrificed in the fourth line;
and will the author be good enough to ex-
plain what he means by "serVing the
Obsolete?
\ But from what we have said, it must not
We inferred that the collection is totally desti-
tte OF true poetic feeling. In many OF the
Vtses we come upon the delicate fancy which
trty belongs to the Muse. We instance the
foll~ing description Of the rising in the
sprity OF 1S61:-
SGhe winter died desDairing,
4ud the weary weeks OF Lent;
AnOthe ice bound rivers melsed,
Aid the tomb OF faith was rent.
On, I've rising OF The People
,Caue with sprngng OF the grass,
Ihey nboundcd rom detection
Ate caster came 10 pass
AND theyoung were all elation
Hearing Sdmter's cannon roar,
AND thev thong 1t how tame the nation
In the age that welt before.
The poem on "The Mar5yr' is not bad
effort, but it is written in a metre which
saVors rather Of roundelay than dirge.
The first yer1n rnods -. -
Good Friday was the day
OF the prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in MS pity,
When they killed hlm in his prime
OF cleme lcy and calm
When with yearning he was filled
To redeem the evil-willed,
And, though cOnqueror, be kind;
But they killed him in his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
And they killed him from behind.
There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pail upon the land;
But the people ~ their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the people weeping
When they bare the iron hand.
But by far the best poem in the book, and
one which, of itself, is sufficient to cancel
many of the defects Of the others, is the
one which treats of Shermans march. 1t
has acquired considerable popularity and our
readers will doubtless remember it by the
commencement
Not Kenesaw high-arching,
Nor Allatoona's glen
Though there the graves lie parching-
Stayed Sherman's miles of men;
From CharrcdAtlauta marching
They launched the sword again.
The columns streamCd like rivers
Which in their course agree,
And they streamed until their flashing
Met the flashing of the sea:
1t was glorious glad marching,
That marching to the sea.
The measure, that of Lord Macaulay's
E'Horatius," is admirably suited to such a
description, and the whole poem is full of fire
The work is neatly bound, and should be
placed side by side with those OF its contem-
poraries which treat of the same topic. Ten
years from now it will recall the fire of the
days which tried mems souls.
The history of a successful piece Of lite
rary tnieyery has been given to the world by
M. Leopold Delisle, in some Observations OF
the Origin of Several Manuscripts in the Col
lection of NJ. Barrois." In the famous library
at Ashburnham Place, Sussex, is collection
of 702 manuscripts, formed by M. j. Barroi
and purchased by Lord Ashburnham in 1912
M. BaIrois died in 1866, and a sketch of Ehi
life was printed in the Bulletin of the Societt
de PHistoire de France for 1855. Ashburnhan
Place is out oil the way, and not often VISITED
hNTl iknH Il. NF