20 



and ruddy-faced English men and maidens make love, — and 

 grow jealous, — and marry — and die. 



Miss Probyn's second volume : " A Ballad of the Eoad and 

 other Poems ; " published in 1883, is larger than the first ; the 

 poems, generally, are longer and more ambitious in design, and 

 display a certain growth and advance in choice of subject and 

 surroundings, though not in picturesqueness of treatment, or 

 skilful delineation of character. There is also •' A Nosegay from 

 a French Garden : " very pretty and graceful, but almost scent- 

 less, and scarcely worth the trouble of tying up. The most 

 powerful piece of work in the volume is the tale told in blank 

 verse and named " Mary Trent." The subject is something hack- 

 neyed : but as a first attempt in this difficult metre it is a 

 remarkable performance. Whether fi-om instinct or design. Miss 

 Probyn's finest poems have their initial motive in the sorrow and 

 misery of women, children, and dumb animals caused by the 

 selfishness and brutality of men. In "Dante's Wife" — "Yes- 

 terday" — "Mill Wheel" — "City Chimes" — "Jane Shore" — 

 " The Model "—" The Painting of a Fan "— " Boy Butterfly "— 

 and " The End of the Journey" — the feeling of sympathy for 

 the afflicted and downtrodden is the dominant inspiration ; while 

 as an interpreter and appealer to the better nature of mankind, 

 I think — after mature deliberation — she stands on a much higher 

 level than Mrs, Browning. Mrs. Browning is always at fever 

 heat or in hysterics ; Miss Probyn never seems to forget the fable 

 of the Sun and Wind. As an instance of her power in portray- 

 ing the evanescent charm of childhood : the epitome of child life 

 and nature in "Duckie" maybe mentioned for special notice. 

 In twenty-nine lines beginning, — " A thing that ran with wane 

 of light," Miss Probyn has summed up the ever-changing 

 attractiveness of those bundles of paradoxes and miracles in 

 miniature which we call children. A clever man can write well 

 about men and women : only a genius can write about children. 

 " Sunday Evening, " for its quiet humour ; " Kevelation," for its 

 imaginative power ; " " Jane Shore," for its vigorous and rapid 

 narrative — resembling in this respect some of the old ballads, 

 may all be read with interest. The smng and movement of the 

 metre in '■ A Ballad of the Pioad," carries us along with it, and we 

 cannot help admiring the handsome highwayman who relieves 

 pretty young ladies of their posies, and testy old gentlemen of 

 their purses, with a smile and a bow : and feel inclined to shout 

 when the hangman is cheated out of his prey at the foot of the 

 gallows tree by sharp witted Mistress Ann. 



To those who, for their sins, have waded through the large 

 mass of modern poetry : most of it a compound of mock medi- 

 eevahsm, sickly sentimentaUsm, and pseudo classicism; these 

 poems come like a refreshing wind through the Ghetto of literary 



