REVIEWS— THE PILGRIMAGE AND OTHES POEMS. 303 



regard as a curiosity in the way of Republican criticism ! The New 

 York Monthly Trade Gazette for April thus prefaces a borrowed 

 notice, under the heading A ' Noble' Poet. " The London literary 

 Gazette reviews a recent volume of poems from the pen of i • Earl 

 of Eilesmere — or perhaps from that of his Secretary, as is more likely ; 

 English noblemen having frequently been detected in trickery of that 

 kind. The Gazette, however, appears to receive the work as the 

 genuine offspring of the Earl — although the artful manner in which 

 it qualifies its opinion in the second sentence would seem to leave 3 

 doubt on this head ;* as if it meant by damning the work with quali- 

 fying praise to leave a loop-hole through which to escape the charge 

 of having been caught, in case one of less noble (!) blood should yet 

 be found to be the father of the work. Those who are acquainted 

 with the reprehensible practices of English noblemen in this respect, 

 and the servile character of English critics, will need no explanation 

 of this paragraph." 



This, it must be owned, is a very pretty little sample of literary 

 criticism, adapted to the latitude of New York ; where, it is plain, 

 whatever other republicanisms may be in vogue, there is to be no 

 Republic of Letters tolerated. The rank taken by Erancis Leveson 

 Grower is not among the foremost in the literal guild, literature 

 having manifestly been with him only a pleasant pastime, — but his 

 name is no novelty among the authors of England, and this discovery 

 of the anonymous Secretary, of " less noble blood," stowed away in 

 some secret garret of Bridgewater House to manufacture verse for him, 

 should be looked after for the next edition of the " Curiosities of 

 Literature." The present edition of Lord Ellesmere's poems intro- 

 duces to the reader various new pieces including " Blue Beard," a 

 burlesque tragedy, published for the first time, though not unknown by 

 repute. The verse is generally characterized by a pleasant gracefulness 

 and elegance, though certainly exhibiting no such unwonted force, or 

 striking originality, as to suggest to ordinary minds the impossibility 

 of an Earl being capable of the feat, without having recourse to those 

 " reprehensible practices of English noblemen," so cleverly detected 

 by the Broadway critic. 



A stanza or two will suffice to give some idea of the Earl's poetical 

 powers. "The Pilgrimage," from which the main title of the volume 

 is derived, as well as others of the author's larger poems, are written in 



* " Lord Ellesmere's poems deserve republication in the handsome form in 

 which they appear in this illustrated edition. Correct taste and good feeling are 

 oharcteristic of his writings, compensating largely for the want of striking originali- 

 ty or unusual power in his poetry." — Literary Gazette. 



