To follow the succession of English amatory poets later than their founders, the writers of sonnet sequences and their lyrical children, lies outside the purpose of this paper, which is simply to trace the position of Mr. Parker; so I shall say nothing of two illustrious and comparatively recent members of the guild, one being Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who in “The House of Life” has preserved and Italianated the romantic traditions of Sidney and Daniel, and the other, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whose “Sonnets from the Portuguese” are the most impassioned utterances of love in any language, linking her name forever with the burning name of Sappho. I find in “A Lover’s Diary” a quality which is not common in the verse of to-day, and which I find nowhere in its fulness except in the poetry of the age of Elizabeth. To describe what evades description, I should call it suggestion,—a vague hinting at rather than a distinct exposition of feeling and thought,—the prescience of things which never beheld are always expected, the remembrance of things which are only known through the shadows they leave behind them, the perception of uncommon capacities for pain, the anticipation of endless energies for pleasure, the instinctive discovery and enjoyment of the secret inspirations of love. The method which Mr. Parker preserves is that of the early masters, whose sole business when they wrote sonnets was to write sonnets, not caring what they proved, or whether they proved anything, not disdaining logic, though not solicitous to obey its laws, not avid for nor averse from the use of imagery; content, in the best words they had, to free their minds of what was in them. They wrote well or ill, according to their themes and moods, but nobly, gloriously, when at their best; and to be reminded of them by a sonneteer of to-day, as I am by Mr. Parker, is a poetic enjoyment which is not often vouchsafed to me. FOOTNOTE: [2] “A Lover’s Diary. Songs in Sequence.” By Gilbert Parker. Cambridge and Chicago: Stone & Kimball. MDCCCXCIV. London: Methuen & Co. Is the New Woman New? _By_ Maurice Thompson IS THE NEW WOMAN NEW? (VARIUM ET MUTABILE SEMPER FEMINA) IT is impossible to resist the New Woman, mainly, perhaps, on account of her moral fascination; but somewhat is due in this behalf to a certain perspective which, reaching into the enchantment of remote times, connects her with a picturesque succession of New Women. The question might be raised to decide, even at this late hour, between Eve and Lilith; which of them was the progressive, representative female?