Sincerity is like traveling on a plain beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves. "MARKS OF BARHAMVILLE." We were summoned one evening some three or four months ago to the house of an eminent New Yorker to hear read the manuscript verses of a gentleman from South Carolina, who was quite sure that he had earned for himself a name that should endure forever as a part of the national glory. We had good wine and the choicest company, and these kept us from sleep through numerous scenas and cantos, and if we formed any judgment in the premises we believe we did not express one. In due time Messrs. Appleton published the book, and as it has not been noticed much here, we copy from the June _Fraser_ the following paragraphs about it, premising that our author had no faith in American criticism, but was quite willing to abide the decisions of English reviewers: "The general fault of carelessness and clumsiness runs through the volume of poems, apparently, of a Trans-atlantic author, 'Marks of Barhamville.' The book is just three times as large as it should have been--as is usually the case nowadays. When will poets learn that 'brevity is the soul of wit:' and more, that saying a thing in three weak lines is no substitute whatsoever for the power of saying it in one strong one? Of the first poem in the book, 'Elfreide of Guldal,' we are unable to speak, having been unable to read it; but it evinces at least more historic information than is common just now among our poets, who seem to forget utterly that _ex nihilo nihil fit_, and that the brains of man may be as surely pumped dry as any other vessel, if nothing be put in to replace what is taken out. Mr. Marks cannot avoid, too, giving us, like every one else, a set of clinical lectures on the morbid anatomy of his own inner man, under the appropriate title of '_Weeds_ from Life's Sea-shore;' forgetting that sea-weeds must be very rare and delicate indeed to be worth preserving in a _hortus siccus_, instead of being usefully covered out of sight in the nearest earth-heap, there to turn into manure. He is, however, more objective than most of his self-exenterating compeers; but he wants the grace and cheerful lightness of the American school. A large part of his volume is taken up with 'Maia, a masque'--an imitation of Milton's manner, but not, alas! of his melody and polish; as, for instance:-- "'Not a warbler wakes his lay, Not a dewdrop pearls the spray, Not a fleecy cloud-rack sails 'Fore the warm-breath'd summer gales, Shedding blessings on the earth, But heavenward points its primal birth. "Hark! the green-sedg'd chiming rill, Weeding down yon cot-crown'd hill, The torrent's dash, the river's gush, The mighty wind-resounding crush Of the fallen monarch of the wood, Re-echo'd by the distant flood.