Some of the sonnets also (notably, one entitled When Acorns Fall) are very charming, and though, as a whole, Love’s Widowhood is tedious and prolix, still it contains some very felicitous touches.  We wish, however, that Mr. Austin would not write such lines as

   Pippins of every sort, and codlins manifold.

‘Codlins manifold’ is a monstrous expression.

Mr. W. J. Linton’s fame as a wood-engraver has somewhat obscured the merits of his poetry.  His Claribel and Other Poems, published in 1865, is now a scarce book, and far more scarce is the collection of lyrics which he printed in 1887 at his own press and brought out under the title of Love-Lore.  The large and handsome volume that now lies before us contains nearly all these later poems as well as a selection from Claribel and many renderings, in the original metre, of French poems ranging from the thirteenth century to our own day.  A portrait of Mr. Linton is prefixed, and the book is dedicated ’To William Bell Scott, my friend for nearly fifty years.’  As a poet Mr. Linton is always fanciful with a studied fancifulness, and often felicitous with a chance felicity.  He is fascinated by our seventeenth-century singers, and has, here and there, succeeded in catching something of their quaintness and not a little of their charm.  There is a pleasant flavour about his verse.  It is entirely free from violence and from vagueness, those two besetting sins of so much modern poetry.  It is clear in outline and restrained in form, and, at its best, has much that is light and lovely about it.  How graceful, for instance, this is!

   BARE FEET

   O fair white feet!  O dawn-white feet
      Of Her my hope may claim! 
   Bare-footed through the dew she came
      Her Love to meet.

   Star-glancing feet, the windflowers sweet
      Might envy, without shame,
   As through the grass they lightly came,
      Her Love to meet.

   O Maiden sweet, with flower-kiss’d feet! 
      My heart your footstool name! 
   Bare-footed through the dew she came,
      Her Love to meet.

‘Vindicate Gemma!’ was Longfellow’s advice to Miss Heloise Durant when she proposed to write a play about Dante.  Longfellow, it may be remarked, was always on the side of domesticity.  It was the secret of his popularity.  We cannot say, however, that Miss Durant has made us like Gemma better.  She is not exactly the Xantippe whom Boccaccio describes, but she is very boring, for all that: 

   GEMMA.  The more thou meditat’st, more mad art thou. 
   Clowns, with their love, can cheer poor wives’ hearts more
   O’er black bread and goat’s cheese than thou canst mine
   O’er red Vernaccia, spite of all thy learning! 
   Care I how tortured spirits feel in hell? 
   DANTE.  Thou tortur’st mine. 
   GEMMA.  Or how souls sing in heaven? 
   DANTE.  Would I were there.