ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 373 PRIZE POEMS. The Publisher of THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY offers prizes to the amount of Four Hundred Dollars in cash for the best original poems submitted for publication. Other prizes will be awarded hereafter. QUATRAIN.-For the best Quatrain (subject: Poetry) received by the editor on or before June 1, 1889, one hundred dollars. First prize, $50; second prize, $30; third prize, $20. Award declared in October, 1889, issue. SONNET. For the best Sonnet (subject: Life) received by the editor on or before September 1, 1889, one hundred dollars. First prize, $50; second prize, $30; third prize, $20. Award declared in April, 1890, issue. RONDEAU. For the best Rondeau (on any subject) received by the editor on or before December 1, 1889, one hundred dollars. First prize, $50; second prize, $30; third prize, $20. Rondeau to consist of fifteen lines only. Award declared in the July, 1890, issue. MANNER OF AWARD.-Poems offered in competition should be written plainly, with proper punctuation, on one side of note paper only. In forwarding to the Editor the competitor should enclose name on a separate sheet. Upon receipt of poems they will be properly numbered. Type-written copies will be made of each poem and sent to a select Committee who will make the awards. Not more than three poems on the same subject by the same author will be received in competition. The Committee of Award shall consist of not less than five persons of known literary reputation. The names of said Committee will be made public with the published awards. All poems entered for prize become the property of the Publisher. PRIZE QUOTATIONS. CASH PRIZES to the amount of Three Hundred Dollars will be awarded by the Publisher to the persons who will name the author of the greatest number of the PRIZE QUOTATIONS. RULES FOR COMPETITORS. I. Nineteen prizes will be declared. First prize, $100.00; second prize, $50.00; third prize, $30.00; fourth prize, $20.00; fifth to ninth prizes, $10.00 each; tenth to nineteenth prizes, $5.00 each. II. Every subscriber to THE Magazine of POETRY will be entitled to compete. III. Answers should be arranged and numbered, written legibly in ink, on one side of note paper only, and signed by the full address of the competitor. IV. The name of the poem from which the selection is made, as well as the author of the quotation, is required. The competitor who answers the greatest number of authors will be awarded first prize, etc. V. Clubs and Reading Circles are allowed to compete as one individual, but not more than one member of the same club will be awarded a prize. Each winner will be required to furnish a statement that he has neither assisted, nor received assistance from, any other prize winner. VI. In case of a tie in totals, the combined prizes will be divided pro rata. VII. Prizes will be declared March 15, 1890, and all answers should be received by the publisher on or before that date. VIII. All answers and inquiries concerning them should be addressed, with postage fully prepaid, to the EDITOR OF PRIZE QUOTATIONS," in care of C. W. Moulton, Buffalo, N. Y. 66 Award to be declared in October, 1890, issue. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. FOR ENGRAVINGS in this number of THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY the Publisher wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of Matthews, Northrup & Co., Buffalo, N. Y.; The Art Alliance, Buffalo, N. Y.; James T. White, New York; The Moss Engraving Company, New York, and Jacob Leonard & Son, New York. FOR COPYRIGHT poems and other selections the Publisher returns thanks to Charles Scribner's Sons; J. B. Lippincott Co.; Roberts Brothers; D. Lothrop Co.; Macmillan & Co.; Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.; Elliot Stock; Field & Tuer; Kansas Publishing House; Cassell & Co.; John C. Clarke; Hoyt, Fogg & Donham; G. P. Putnam's Sons; Walter Scott; William Blackwood & Sons; Trübner & Co.; Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; Harper & Brother. NIAGARA FALLS IS JUSTLY conceded to be the most beautiful sight in the world. It is the crowning glory of our country and the American continent. A very mistaken idea prevails about Niagara Falls. Many people think they can see it by arriving on one train, hurrying about the falls in a hack and departing on the next train. If this is all one can do, then one can say that Niagara has been looked at; but surely not that it has been seen, comprehended or understood. You can not even begin to comprehend the first element of its beauty in a visit of a day by rushing madly about from place to place. A visit of two weeks is the least that should be thought of. Hawthorne says: "Niagara is indeed the wonder of the world and time and thought must be employed in comprehending it." Harriet Martineau writes: "There is nothing like patient watching and waiting in a place like this. The gazer who sits for hours is sure to be rewarded." Mr. Howells says: "All parts of the prodigious pageant of Niagara Falls have an eternal novelty." Rev. Andrew Reed writes: "Days should be spent here in happy seclusion, regaled by lovely scenes of nature, the music of the sweetest waters, and in fellowship at will with the great falls." There is every inducement to remain that length of time. The climate of Niagara is in the highest degree healthful and invigorating. The atmosphere constantly acted upon by the rushing water and spray, is kept pure, fresh and salutary. There are not hear-as there are so often on the sea-shore-stagnant pools or marshes near, to send abroad their noxious miasmas, poisoning the air and producing disease. No pestilential or epidemic complaints ever infest this spot; it is sacred from their approach. Even the cholera has kept aloof from its raging waters. No place on the civilized earth offers such attractions as Niagara, and yet they can never be fully known except to the who see them, from the utter impossibility of describing such scenes. When motion can be expressed by color, then, and the only, can Niagara be described. The invalid may here find rest, refreshment, healthful exercise and pure air, and that gentle exhileration of reek spirits so desirable in all cases and so necessary to a recovery. The convalescent will here be relieved from the languor of weakness, and much of the danger of relapse, by the tit II able excitement scenes of extreme beauty and majesty must produce. The business man, desirous of escaping for a time the troublous round of toil and care in which he moves, ca. Lop enjoy his leisure and dignify his relaxation. The man of science can nowhere else find such an ample field for research, nor a subject which would so much bozor invetigation; for, destined to be the wonder of all time, Niagara is yet almost entirely unknown, though the world is full of its fame. What chronicles of past ages are niched in those eternal walls? What monuments of mighty changes sculptured in those hoary rocks? Who has the skill to divine its mystic lore-to decipher its time-traced pages-let him come! Every one, in short, who has an eye to perceive, a heart to feel, and a soul to realize the grandest exhibition o'creative energy, and the mightiest manifestations of Omnipotent power, will here find an answer to his higst aspiration, a favorable response to his desire for the spirit-kindling ectasy of reverence and awe. To anyone who will but study it aright, Niagara is a great moral tonic. It inspires, it elevates, it fr shee, delights, and sobers men. It is sad that it should be so, but, as a fact, it is too often viewed in a spirit of me. vugar curiosity-in much the same way as one would view any exceptional freak of nature-a giant, a dwarf, or the Siamese twins And this is the explanation of one of the saddest sights witnessed about the Falls, the spectacle of a party of apparently refined and cultivated people being driven hastily about this glorious shrine of the Eternal, by a driver whose countenance and language indicate that a noble thought or a lofty conception is as alien to his mind as disinterested benevolence would be to a hungry jackal. The usual theme of all such drivers are the stories of suicides, terrific accidents, horrible deaths and foolhardy adventures, which desecrate Niagara. To even allow oneself to think of such things is profanation, destructive of all reverence and awe. It is as if one should read the "Police Gazette" while pretending to listen to the Oratorio of the Creation. To expect the ordinary hackman to entertain one while driving about Niagara, is like asking a London cabman to accompany one through and comment upon the historical events associated with Westminster Abbey, or to expect an Italian brigand to define the distinctive elements of sublimity and beauty of St. Peter's, at Rome. If one is compelled by ill health or indisposition to ride, surely silence is the only safeguard. In no other place in the world should the minds of persons of sensibility and culture experience feelings of equal sublimity, be inspired with more exalted ideas, be more profoundly impressed with the powerlessness of man and the omnipotence of the Eternal Spirit, if the soul is only allowed a fair opportunity to come into its own. At no other spot will one be more inclined to utter a prayer of thankfulness that in his little day he has been permitted to behold this eternal image of the Creator's energy; His power manifest in its terrific might; His goodness in its beauty and sunlight and perpetual bow of promise. To those who come to it aright, such thoughts will arise and become a spring of refreshment forever in the soul. But to experience them the cataract is not to be idly glanced at or stupidly stared at, but to be studied in silence, in reverence, in awe, and in love, at leisure and in peace. In summer, the great hotel-the finest at Niagara-is the International. The magnificent summer home is worthy of a visit for itself. It is four stories high, built entirely of stone, the kitchens, bakeries and furnaces are in an entirely distinct building, so that the odor of cookery-to persons of delicate sensibility sometimes, in summer, very offensive-is never present in the very large, spacious, well-ventilated and richly-furnished apartments. The hotel faces the new park, and its lawn leads down directly to the rapids. From its magnificent colonnades and rooms an unrivaled view may be had of the American Rapids, and the islands and the brink of the falls. Indeed, the lawn itself-interspersed with fine beds of beautiful flowers and with clusters of magnificent forest trees-may be fairly pronounced one of the loveliest spots in the world. It is open from the 15th of June to the 1st of October. Its prices for rooms and board on the first floor are $4 per day per person; on the second floor, $3.50, and on the third floor, $3, and is kept both upon the American and European plan. As the hotel is fire-proof, with fire-escapes from every room, three stairways and two elevators, the rooms on the third floor are almost as desirable as those on the first floor. THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY. VOL. II. No. 4. AUSTIN DOBSON. HENRY 4 PAIN th, England, in the year 1940. ENRY AUSTIN DOBSON, poet and critic, was He was educated at Strasburg, and his parents intended that he should become an engineer. At the age of sixteen, however, he entered the civil service. In the autumn of 1867 Anthony Trollope, the novelist, founded a magazine called Saint Paul's (it was edited by the novelist and illustrated by J. E. Millais, R. A.); and among other new writers whom the editor then introduced to the public was Austin Dobson. Among his earliest contributions to Saint Paul's were the poems, "Une Marquise," "Avice," and "A Song of Angiola in Heaven." All are signed "A. D." The first-named (with a few slight verbal alterations) now finds a place in "Old-World Spelling;" the second appears among "Vignettes in Rhyme;" while the third is now included among the "Miscellaneous Poems." Mr. Dobson's first volume of verse was published in 1873, under the title of "Vignettes in Rhyme." It was followed by "Proverbs in Porcelain," in 1877; and "Old-World Spelling" and "At the Sign of the Lyre" succeeded at intervals. Mr. Dobson's literary work conveniently divides itself into two well-defined groups: his contributions to the study of eighteenth-century literature, and his poetry. With the former I may, en passant, be allowed to mention his monographs on Fielding, Steele and Goldsmith. These works are noteworthy for careful research, accuracy of statement, and that finished prose style which can be attained only by the assiduous writer of verses. In the matter of poetry, Mr. Dobson is famous as having been the first English writer to popularize the old French forms of verse; and his name will always remain associated with the ballade, the rondel, the rondeau, the villanelle and the triolet. He employs these tricky and ofttimes beautiful measures with consummate skill; and in his hands, and as written by Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, and other acknowledged masters, the old French forms have been found capable of yielding a most varied and refined entertainment. Two characteristics of Mr. Dobson's verse can scarcely fail to strike the most superficial reader. The one is his minute acquaintance with the customs and life of the eighteenth century-attained, he will modestly tell you, by diligent reading of the newspapers of the time; the other is the grace and polish displayed in every line he writes. The former could only be illustrated by reference to much of his poetry, and to many of his prose works; but the latter will make itself evident to any one who will take the trouble to read his poems. Mr. Dobson, like a true artist, works slowly. All the poetry he has written in twenty years might be compassed within the space of two moderate-sized volumes. He laments the "hurry of this time" in one of his rondeaux: Scant space have we for Art's delays, Mr. Dobson's ballade entitled "The Prodigals" is usually looked upon as the "pioneer ballade" of our language. It is, at any rate, the first that Mr. Dobson wrote, and, in my opinion, it is the best. It is distinguished from his lighter verse by the serious purpose which underlies it, and fulfills the highest aim of poetry in being a "criticism of life." "The Cradle" is a gem which deserves to be placed at the side of Wordsworth's "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways," and Matthew Arnold's "Requiescat." "He Stands at the Kerb and Sings," exhibits both Mr. Dobson's quaint humor and his perfect mastery of that most difficult of all J. U. the French measures, the villanelle. BEFORE SEDAN. "The dead hand clasped a letter." HERE in this leafy place, |