(2) Sagittulae.  By E. W. Bowling. (Longmans, Green and Co.)

(3) Tuberose and Meadowsweet.  By Mark Andre Raffalovich. (David Bogue.)

(4) Sturm und Drang. (Elliot Stock.)

In reply to the review A Bevy of Poets the following letter was published in the Pall Mall Gazette on March 30, 1885, under the title of

THE ROOT OF THE MATTER

Sir,—­I am sorry not to be able to accept the graceful etymology of your reviewer who calls me to task for not knowing how to pronounce the title of my book Tuberose and Meadowsweet.  I insist, he fancifully says, ’on making “tuberose” a trisyllable always, as if it were a potato blossom and not a flower shaped like a tiny trumpet of ivory.’  Alas! tuberose is a trisyllable if properly derived from the Latin tuberosus, the lumpy flower, having nothing to do with roses or with trumpets of ivory in name any more than in nature.  I am reminded by a great living poet that another correctly wrote: 

   Or as the moonlight fills the open sky
   Struggling with darkness—­as a tuberose
   Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie

   Like clouds above the flower from which they rose.

In justice to Shelley, whose lines I quote, your readers will admit that I have good authority for making a trisyllable of tuberose.—­I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Andre Raffalovich. 
March 28.

PARNASSUS VERSUS PHILOLOGY

(Pall Mall Gazette, April 1, 1885.)

To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette.

Sir,—­I am deeply distressed to hear that tuberose is so called from its being a ‘lumpy flower.’  It is not at all lumpy, and, even if it were, no poet should be heartless enough to say so.  Henceforth, there really must be two derivations for every word, one for the poet and one for the scientist.  And in the present case the poet will dwell on the tiny trumpets of ivory into which the white flower breaks, and leave to the man of science horrid allusions to its supposed lumpiness and indiscreet revelations of its private life below ground.  In fact, ‘tuber’ as a derivation is disgraceful.  On the roots of verbs Philology may be allowed to speak, but on the roots of flowers she must keep silence.  We cannot allow her to dig up Parnassus.  And, as regards the word being a trisyllable, I am reminded by a great living poet that another correctly wrote: 

   And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
   The sweetest flower for scent that blows;
   And all rare blossoms from every clime
   Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

In justice to Shelley, whose lines I quote, your readers will admit that I have good authority for making a dissyllable of tuberose.—­I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

The critic,
who had to read four volumes of modern poetry. 
March 30.