[Is, in our estimation, a splendid failure. It lacks the variety which
the _Annual_ should possess for a family of readers; and its
sameness is, moreover, of the saddest character in the whole region of
romance. The stories are long, and lazily told; and they overflow with
the most lugubrious monotony. There is scarcely a relief throughout the
volume, from Wordsworth's "majestic sonnet" on Sir Walter Scott, to
Autumn Flowers, by Agnes Strickland; we travel from one end to the
other, and all is lead and leaden--dull, heavy, and sad, as old Burton
could wish; and full of moping melancholy, unenlivened by quaintness, or
humour of any cast. Not that we mean to condemn the pieces individually;
but, collectively, they are too much in the same vein: the Editor has
studied too closely his text-motto:
"Fairy tale to lull the heir,
Goblin grim the maids to scare."
It is all shade, without a gleam of sunshine, if we except two or three
of the most trifling of the papers. The best tale in the volume is the
Marsh Maiden, by Leigh Ritchie; next is the Jacobite Exile and his
Hound: Retrospections of Secundus Parnell, are an infliction upon the
reader; and these, with two _mediocre_ tales, and a sketch or two,
make up the prose contents. The poetry has greater merit, though almost
in one unvaried strain. Mr. Watts has contributed but one lyric, and
Mrs. Watts a stirring ballad of Spanish revenge; Mary Howitt has
contributed a fairy ballad, pretty enough; and the Sin of Earl Walter, a
tale of olden popish times in England, of some 60 or 70 verses. We quote
two specimens from the poetry:]