SOURCE: A review of Poems, in The Nation, New York, Vol. 2, No. 27, January 4, 1866, pp. 22-4.

The following essay offers a review of Undertones and Idyls and Legends of Iverburn.

One has not to read far in this collection of Mr. Buchanan's poetry to see that he is a poet, but one should read it through before deciding on his defects and merits. This is due to him as well as to most young poets, the present transition school of verse reflecting so positively the characteristics of two or three of its masters that originality is about the last thing we look to find in a new disciple. Mr. Buchanan is an original poet, the reader will discover, but not to any great extent in his first volume, Undertones, which contains nineteen poems on what may be carelessly considered classical subjects, exclusive of the poet's prologue, “To David in...