thors of England. The habit is growing up of pubJishing, in one volume, reviews of contemporary authors, all by one hand. In itself it is not a bad habit, for the reading of one criticism gives us some hint of the value of the others. Mr. Thomas Powell's criticisms seem to us of little value. The chief interest of his book is, that he has net personally most of the modern English writers, whom he describes, and can give some personal account of their appearance, together with some dates and facts in their lives. His criticisms are probably founded wholly on the degree of intimacy to which they admitted him. Those who asked him to dinner fare much better than those who declined a personal introduction. As he inserts everything he can lay hands on, into the book, there are some disagreeable instances of the violation of private confidence. Mr. Cornelius Matthews has lent him some private letters from Elizabeth Browning Barrett,one of which we are sorry to say, appears at full length. We have published already two or three good stories from the book, which the Literary World had taken from the proof-sheets. These really exhausted a quarter part of what there was in it of general interest. From what there is left, in the midst of a great deal of tedious reading, we extract the following passages, making the necessary corrections in Punctuation, spelling and syntax. BROWNING'S SORDELLO. |