By A. GARLAND MEARS.
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NEWCASTLE CHRONICLE.—‘As an Alpine traveller might pluck the eidelweiss in some unexpected cranny, so we open the pages of a volume of Idylls, Legends, and Lyrics. It is the work of a poet of Nature.... Mrs. Mears strikes her harp with power and grace, and breathes life and poetry into the dry bones of history. Interest will be aroused in them, not only by their poetic treatment, but also by the erudition displayed by the author.
‘The legends of her volume are enhanced by notes betraying considerable research.... Mrs. Mears may be indeed described as the poet of love.... She is a close observer of human passion. Never before have we seen such a complete analysis of the tender passion as that given in the series of eighteen sonnets under the title of Honoria’s Love.... Idylls, Legends, and Lyrics go into the world with the stamp of approval, and, in winning credit for their author, they reflect honour upon the town that saw their birth.’
MANCHESTER COURIER.—‘Considerable variety of style and sentiment are illustrated in these interesting verses. The dramatic Idyll Ilamea; Honoria’s Love, and other Sonnets; Edain, an Ancient Legend of Ireland; Poems in Blank Verse; Cædmon, an Early English Idyll, together with Songs and Lyrical Poems, are all samples of composition which indicate that the author is no novice in such work. In Honoria’s Love are depicted the several emotions of the mind when under the influence of love, each sonnet expressing a separate phase of that passion which is admitted to be the strongest of all human passions. Owing to the form of the verse these eighteen sonnets are less a love story, perhaps, than an exposition of the emotions. The following is a specimen of them.... With one other quotation we will close this admirable book.
‘LOVE, THE UNIVERSAL LAW.
‘As atom unto atom firmly lies
Obeying blindly that great law which makes
Subservient even lifeless matter; wakes
An energy, a force whose hidden ties