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Rh Or in ' A Carol closing Sixty-nine':— 'Of me myself— the jocund heart yet beating in my breast, The body wreck'd, old, poor, and paralysed — the strange inertia falling pall-like round me. The burning fires down in my sluggish blood not yet extinct. The undiminished faith — the groups of loving friends. ' Yet the biu-den of it all is the same as of old in Leaves of Grass — ' Pleasantly and well-suited I walk ; whither I walk I cannot define, but I know that it is well.' The Sands at Seveiili/ are as variegated as ever. The poet resists anything better than his own diversity. Here is ' The first Dandelion ' looking ' forth from its sunny nook of sheltered grass — innocent, golden, calm as the dawn ' ; here is a song to his Canary-bird ; here is the ' small thin Indian helmsman, with brow elate and governing hand,' guiding the steamship through the dangerous rapids of the St. Lawrence ; here is a picture of Broadway teeming with human life ; here the ' old salt,' Kossabone, related to the poet ' on his mother's side,' sits on a point overlooking the sea, watching, as his custom is, afternoons, the coming and going of the far vessels : he nearly ninety yeai'S old, and been a sailor all his life, now lives with his grandchild, Jenny : — ' And now the close of all : One struggling outbound brig, one day, baffled for long — cross- tides and much wrong going, At last at nightfall strikes the breeze aright, her whole luck veering. And swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness proudly enter- ing, cleaving, as he watches, "She's free — she's on her destination" — these the last words — when Jenny came he sat there dead, Dutch Kossabone, Old Salt, related on ray mother's side, far back.' Here is ' The Voice of the Rain,' very beautiful ; and here, at last, most characteristic, most obstinately- clinging of all, is the Good-bye to his readers, entitled ' After the Supper and Talk' : — ' After the supper and talk — after the day is done. As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging. Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating (So hard for his hands to release those hands — no more will they meet. No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young, A far-stretching journey awaits him — to return no more). Shunning, postponing .severance — seeking to ward off the last word ever so little, E'en at the exit-door turning— charges superfluous calling back — e'en as he descends the steps. Something to eke out a minute additional -shadows of nighifall deepening. Farewells, messages lessening — dimmer the forth-goer's visage and form. Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness— loth, oh, so loth to depirt ! Garrulous to the very last.' One of the most interesting of the shorter papers is that 'On the Bible as Poetry.' Needless to say that Whitman — modern man though he essentially is — looks upon the Bible as a well-spring of poetry — 'the axis of civilisation and history during thousands of years . . . even to our Nineteenth Century here are the fountain-heads of song.' From him the chunk-headed ' secularist' gets scant regard ; 'but reading folks pro- bably get their information of those Bible areas and peoples, as depicted in print by English and French cads, the most shallow, impudent, supercilious brood on earth.' Amid the Shakespeare speculations of the day, it is important to note that our author — who has undoubt- edly a fine critical sense — leans slightl}', though with- out by any means committing himself, to the Baconian theory ; and more important, to find that he is con- vinced that the great series of historical plays hides within itself a deliberate plan and purpose — that, namely, of exposing the dragon-rancours of diseased and dying Feudalism — much, we suppose, as Ibsen's social dramas to-day are exposing the futilities of diseased and dying Commercialism. An affectionate criticism of Robert Burns should commend the volume to the hearts of Scotchmen, though Whitman does not think those true friends of the Ayrshire bard who will not accept for him ' any- thing less than the highest rank, alongside of Homer, Shakespeare, etc.' A paper on 'Slang' is full of sug- gestion on that ever-wonderful topic, the growth of language. Another on ' The Old Bowery Theatre,' and Booth, the actor, is replete with local interest and reminiscences. But we must stop. The book is to be had for a dollar and a quarter (about 5s.), from David M'Kay, publisher, Philadelphia, and probably can be ordei-ed through any British bookseller. After all, November BoiigJis is just what its title sug- gests. The full foliage and wealth of summer has gone ; but in exchange comes the widening prospect, the faint blue distance, the strangelj'-quickening odour of dead and dying leaves; the branches are alive with motion — the sough of the vast wind that sweeps over the world — the cosmic life — which, however impalpable, breathes through these pages. In one of his pieces in this volume Walt Whitman, apostrophising the Sea, de- clares that he would gladly surrender the powers of Homer and Shakespeare, if only the Sea would breathe upon his verse ' and leave its odor there." And in another passage (in the introductory essay) he says — ' No one will get at my verses who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, or attempt at such per- formance, or as aiming mainly towards art or jestheti- cism.' It is in this quality of Nature in Whitman's work, transcending Art, yet indeed only possible through the patient study, through the perfection and final surrender of Art, that the secret of W'hitman's power lies. The breath of the free wind blows through his pages. Criticism of his imperfections is easy ; the secret of his power is difficult to attain. F.DWARD Carpenter.