Poems by Two Friends

Columbus, Ohio : Follett, Foster, & Co. 1860. pp. 162.

THE TWO Friends are Messrs. John J. Piatt and W. D. Howells. The readers of the “Atlantic” have already had a taste of the quality of both, and, we hope, will often have the same pleasure again. The volume is a very agreeable one, with little of the crudeness so generally characteristic of first ventures, — not more than enough to augur richer maturity hereafter. Dead-ripeness in a first book is a fatal symptom, sure sign that the writer is doomed forever to that pale limbo of faultlessness from which there is no escape upwards or downwards.

We can scarce find it in our hearts to make any distinctions in so happy a partnership; but while we see something more than promise in hoth writers, we have a feeling that Mr. Piatt shows greater originality in the choice of subjects, and Mr. Howells more instinctive felicity of phrase in the treatment of them. Both of them seem to us to have escaped remarkably from the prevailing conventionalisms of verse, and to write in metre because they have a genuine call thereto. We are pleased with a thorough Western flavor in some of the poems, especially in such pieces as “ The Pioneer Chimney ” and “ The Movers.” We welcome cordially a volume in which we recognize a fresh and authentic power, and expect confidently of the writers a yet higher achievement ere long. The poems give more than glimpses of a faculty not so common that the world can afford to do without it.