’Now certain qualities in this composition are so obvious that we need hardly specify them; we give the writer credit for simplicity, pathos, and a hearty sympathy with the victims of the tyrannical greed of the chase-loving British landlord. But it is with no intent of looking a gift-horse in the mouth (which would be a poor return for the courtesy of the lady who has interested herself in the rustic bard) if we proceed to resolve this piece into its elements, that we may the more accurately cast the horoscope of this new applicant for the public applause. To begin with, the sentiment of nostalgia is but a slender backbone for any work of literary art. In almost every case it is itself a fallacy. What were the conditions under which these people—arbitrarily and tyrannically, it may have been—were forced away from their homes? Either they were bad agriculturists or the land was too poor to support them; and in either case their transference to a more generous soil could be nothing but a benefit to them. Their life must have been full of privations and cares. _Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit_; but the pleasure ought to lie in thinking of the escape; so that we maintain that to base any piece of literary work on such a false sentiment as nostalgia is seen to be, leads us to suspect the _veracity_ of the writer and calls upon us to be on our guard. Moreover, we maintain that it is of the essence of pastoral and idyllic poetry to be cheerful and jocund; and it is to be observed that sadness prevails in poetry only when a nation has passed its youth and becomes saturated with the regret of old age. We prefer the stories told _Where Corydon and Thyrsis met_ _Are at their savoury dinner set;_ and the lyrist when he sings _Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,_ _Dulce loquentem;_ and we hold that when the poets of a nation are permeated by a lackadaisical sentiment—when they have the candour to style themselves the idle singers of an empty day—when the burden of their song is regret and weariness and a lamentation over former joys—then it is time for such poets and the nation they represent to take a back seat in the lecture halls of literature, and give way to the newer and stronger race that is bound to dominate the future.’