Five years ago there appeared a small volume entitled “The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems, by A.” (The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems.  By A. London:  1849) It was received we believe with general indifference.  The public are seldom sanguine with new poets; the exceptions to the rule having been for the most part signal mistakes; while in the case of “A.” the inequality of merit in his poems was so striking that even persons who were satisfied that qualities were displayed in them of the very highest kind, were yet unable to feel confidence in the future of an author so unusually incapable, as it appeared, of knowing when he was doing well and when he was failing.

Young men of talent experience often certain musical sensations, which are related to poetry as the fancy of a boy for a pretty face is related to love; and the counterfeit while it lasts is so like the reality as to deceive not only themselves but even experienced lookers-on who are not on their guard against the phenomenon.  Time in either case is requisite to test the quality both of the substance and of the feeling, and we desired some further evidence of A.’s powers before we could grant him his rank as a poet; or even feel assured that he could ultimately obtain it.  There was passion, as in a little poem called “Stagyrus,” deep and searching; there was unaffected natural feeling, expressed sweetly and musically; in “The Sick King of Bokhara,” in several of the Sonnets and other fragmentary pieces, there was genuine insight into life and whatever is best and noblest in it;—­but along with this, there was often an elaborate obscurity, one of the worst faults which poetry can have; and indications that the intellectual struggles which, like all young men in our times, he was passing through, were likely to issue in an indifferentism neither pleasing nor promising.

The inequality in substance was not more remarkable than the inequality in the mechanical expression of it.  “The Forsaken Merman” is perhaps as beautifully finished as anything of the kind in the English language.  The story is exquisitely told, and word and metre so carefully chosen that the harmony of sound and meaning is perfect.  The legend itself we believe is Norwegan.  It is of a King of the Sea who had married an earthly maiden; and was at last deserted by her from some scruples of conscience.  The original features of it are strictly preserved, and it is told indirectly by the old Sea King to his children in a wild, irregular melody, of which the following extract will convey but an imperfect idea.  It is Easter time, and the mother has left her sea palace for the church on the hill side, with a promise to return—­

“She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. 
’Children, dear, was it yesterday? 
Children, dear, were we long alone?’
’The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan. 
Long prayers,’ I said, ’in the world they say. 
Come’ I said, ’and we rose through the surf in the bay. 
We went up the beach, by the sandy down,
Where the sea-stocks bloom to the white-walled town,
Through the narrow paved streets where all was still,
To the little gray church on the windy hill. 
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers;
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.