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MODERN BABYLON; 



CRESCENT?; AND OTHER POEMS. 



BY H. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL. 



Morning Post. An author who has reached the honour of a sixth edition 

 as Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell has done in his very clever and amusing 

 book, "Puck on Pegasus" can venture again before the reading public 

 without any great anxiety as to his reception. His present work, " Modern 

 Babylon," contains some sixteen poems, well calculated to show the versatility 

 of the author's muse .... Mr. Pennell grasps his subject with the 

 vigour of a man of genius, and he invariably works on the right side of the 

 question. He is wholesome, earnest, thoughtful a worshipper not only of 

 the beautiful but the good. ... In such poems as " Holyhead to Dublin" 

 there is rush and swing in the verse, which make it audible as the pace of a 

 horse or the clank of a steam-whistle. . . . Side by side with this strength 

 we find grace and elegance and airy fancies. What a charming little poem, 

 for instance, full of suggestiveness and sparkle, is the one we quote at length, 

 entitled " Outside" ! . . . . What sweetness of tone and purity of idea 

 live in this little poem ! It recalls the matchless lines "To Helen," written 

 by the most poetic of all American poets, the ill-starred Edgar Allan Poe. 



It is very exceptional to find a gentleman like Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell 

 capable of charming us with such verse as this, and yet so practically gifted 

 that Bailey's Magazine can say of him, " He is not only well known as a 

 Senior Angler, but as one of the straightest riders and best shots in 

 England." 



Westminster Gazette. Mr. Pennell is an accomplished and versatile 

 man. . . . The volume we have under notice shows another and very 

 different view of the mental diagnosis of its author. An elegant gift of 

 rhyme, and no small share of the divine afflatus are evident in every page. 

 The opening poem, " Modern Babylon," is worthy of the philosophy of three- 

 score years of earthly sojourn. " The Two Champions," gives an exquisite 

 poetic setting to a beautiful idea. "Fire," evidently inspired by a recent 

 calamitous event, is a clear and incisive bit of word-painting. . . . There 

 is not, in fact, a single piece in this volume which does not evidence know- 

 ledge of the springs of human nature ; deep culture and study, allied to in- 

 variable purity of thought and expression. . . . 



One feels inclined to say to the seeker of true poetry poetry without the 

 effeminacy of Tennyson, the "naughtiness" of Swinburne, or the harsh, 

 croaking unmusicality of Browning Go to the glowing verses, the unstained 

 morality, and the panoramic imagery to be found in the pages of " Modern 

 Babylon." 



John Bull. Mr. Pennell is a stalwart champion of his age, and in reading 

 his ringing lines we feel that most assuredly there is a charm for the poet in 

 even the most material of modern life. . . . The following comes from a 

 master-hand. . . . 



Scotsman. Real and undoubted poetic talent. 



Athenaeum. Language alike strong and musical. . . . Earnestness and 

 fine appreciation of the grander qualities of nature, more especially of human 

 nature, are on this occasion the chief characteristics of Mr. PermeH's muse. 

 . . . . " Crescent" is a passionate protest against the complaint ever on the 

 lips of idlers, but scouted by all honest workers, that the Age of Poetry is 

 past. . . . The nervous and deep-rolling lines of " Crescent" would of them- 

 selves be a sufficient answer. 



CHATTO AND WINDUS, PUBLISHERS, PICCADILLY. 



