SONGS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 BY JOAQUIN MILLER. 
 
 Extracts from some Reviews of the New American Poet, 
 
 which have appeared in the English Literary 
 
 Journals the Criticisms oFsome of 
 
 the most learned Critics of 
 
 the day, 
 
 "ENGLISH criticism is discerning and deliberate. Books by new 
 authors are sometimes put aside because their authors are unknown : 
 but if a work is read at all, it will be, except in very rare instances, 
 candidly and fairly criticised, and public opinion will tolerate 
 neither undue severity nor undue praise. English criticism (except 
 perhaps that of a few of the lowest journals, which is not worth 
 having) is not to be bought with favors or with gold. Faults are 
 not absent from it; but venality or absolute unfairness is not of 
 these. If ever they become so, the public will quench the critics. 
 
 " Miller came to London friendless, without influence, without 
 reputation. His book won for itself the admiration of some of the 
 best and wisest of the land. Many of the most favorable notices 
 which have appeared in the chief Journals and Reviews, have been 
 written by the most trained and cautious hands in London. The 
 men who have clustered about him have won the highest fame the 
 country can bestow through years of honorable and splendid toil. 
 Their opinion stands as the index of the world's opinion. Higher 
 favors the world has not to bestow than their friendship and 
 
 esteem." 
 
 GEORGE FRANCIS ARMSTRONG. 
 
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MR. MILLERS 
 
 SONGS OF THE SUN-LANDS. 
 
 Selections from some criticisms of Mr. Miller's 
 new volume of Poems, which have appeared in 
 the English journals. 
 
 Front the Atheneeum. 
 
 " Songs of the Sun-Lands " is, it will be seen, similar in character to " Songs 
 of the Sierras," previously published. The same kind of materials is used, and 
 the same kind of faults and excellence in their use is observable. Mr. Miller's 
 muse in this, its second flight, has taken the same direction as in its first essay, 
 but, upon the whole, we think, with a stronger wing. The new work gives evi- 
 dence that the author has not, as was feared, intensified his former mannerism, 
 but has profited by the advice of friends and critics. 
 
 Front the Academy. 
 
 Mr. Miller has a faculty of making himself felt through what he writes, and we 
 quit his poems with a mingled sense of admiration and regret : admiration of his 
 really great powers ; regret that he seems unable to pursue one of two courses in 
 their application, &c. 
 
 From the Westminster Review. 
 
 We some time ago called especial attention to this new American poet's first work, 
 "The Songs of the Sierras," nor do we repent of our criticism. He has perhaps 
 lost something of that boldness, and that flavor of originality, which in a certain 
 way reminded one of Walt Whitman without his special weaknesses and extrava- 
 gances. Still, to counterbalance this loss, he has gained a certain polish. Yet 
 here we perceive a danger. But Mr. Miller must be careful that he does not buy 
 elegance at too dear a price. We ourselves prefer the roughness of the backwoods 
 of America to all the drawing-room conventionalities of Europe. We prefer Mr. 
 Toaquin Miller's native reed-pipe to any guitar. The most perfect poem in th 
 
present collection is without doubt " The Isles of the Amazons." Here we see Mr 
 Miller at his best. Here he has put forth his real strength. It is, in short, a 
 poem which will live. 
 
 From the Standard, 
 
 No poetry of the present age has any claim to the unconventional freedom, the 
 Supreme independence, the spontaneity, the bold and vigorous originality, the all- 
 pervading passion, the unresting energy, and the prodigal wealth of imagery which 
 stamp the poetry before us. ... For further specimens of Mr. Miller's present 
 poems ve must send our readers to the volume itself, which is, with all its faults, a 
 very garden of delight, adorned everywhere as it is with the fairest blooms of fancy, 
 and breathing everywhere as it does of the sweetest and purest inspirations of the 
 
 Front the London Sunday Times. 
 
 The success both in England and America of Mr. Joaquin Miller's " Songs of 
 the Sierras" has been uncontested. The tide of passionate life with which they 
 were charged, and the fervor of poetic appreciation and sympathy they displayed, 
 combined with the startling beauty and power of portions of the workmanship to 
 render men insensible to irregularities and inequalities of style. . . . Here we bid 
 farewell to Mr. Miller's delightful volume. A pleasanter companion into the en- 
 chanted gardens of poetry we do not seek. He knows 
 
 " each lane and every alley green, 
 Dingle or bushy dell of the wild wood, 
 And every bosky bourn from side to side," 
 
 and he conducts us to scenes to which we have no other guide. That Mr. Miller 
 had poetic inspiration his first volume abundantly proved. That his verse will not 
 be a mere well at which the traveller can drink once ere pursuing his journey, but 
 a full river of song hurrying through forest and meadow, and bearing with it carol 
 of bird and scent of flower and hay, is now sufficiently established. 
 
 From the Bookseller. 
 
 Resembling his previously published collection, in that the verses are prin- 
 cipally descriptive of strange, far-away countries, and contain numerous bright, 
 beautiful pictures of external nature, these songs of the sun-lands will be warmly 
 welcomed as the riper efforts of a real poet. . . . And so we might proceed through 
 poem after poem, finding images of great and sterling poetic value. Nor, perhaps, 
 would it be difficult to discover some that might be called trivial and poor ; but w 
 prefer to judge a writer by his best rather than by his worst ; and Mr. Miller's 
 best lines stamp him a true man, a man of sympathetic instincts and deep rev- 
 erence for all that is high and noble in nature and humanity. 
 
From the Nonconformist* 
 
 Of all American poetry in recent years, that of Mr.. Joaquin Miller is the fresh- 
 est He is a new poet in the proper sense of the term. He owes allegiance to 
 no transatlantic masters, and he is no servile imitator of the modern minstrelsy of 
 our own country. In outward form in the mechanism of his poetry he of 
 course follows the fashion of the times ; but the spirit is new, the tone is indi- 
 vidual and distinct. In his poems, for the first time the prairies, the sierras, and 
 the new and old life of the Far West of America have been fairly poetized, so to 
 speak. . . . "Songs of the Sun-Lands" contains nothing, perhaps, superior to 
 " Arizonian" in Mr. Miller's " Songs of the Sierras;" yet it contains no poem 
 so crude as one or two poems in his former volume. The best here is undoubt- 
 edly " The Isles of the Amazons." . . . Notwithstanding these defects, however, 
 we maintain that we have in Mr. Joaquin Miller a new poet, who with more culture 
 and higher aims is fully capable of producing in the future a poem that the world 
 will not willingly let die. 
 
 From the Globe. 
 
 His poetry is in no danger of suffering neglect, nor is it likely to lack admirers. 
 By his earlier volume, " The Songs of the Sierras," he fully proved his right to 
 be heard ; and students of poetry have not forgotten the influence of the fresh 
 thought and freer music his verse contained. That, in truth, was the essence of 
 Mr. Miller's achievement. He had somehow broken away from the ordinary 
 standards of poetical composition without sacrifice of musical effect. The verse 
 was larger and with less restraint than could be found in other singers, moving 
 with a more continuous flow, and advancing in a cadence always varied and not 
 recurring. Something instructive in the style seemed to image both the singer 
 and the thing sung of, so that we were influenced not so much by this or that par- 
 ticular thought, as by the romantic and picturesque effect of the whole, with its 
 fearless and confident description, and its untamed yet tuneful melody. To follow 
 the poet was like following a keen, swift rider, who rides eagerly, it matters not 
 whither, and who attracts us by a wild grace and a beautiful skill as he rushes 
 through scenes of luxuriant loveliness that would cause a less impetuous horseman 
 to pause and linger. That was the character'of his verse as we knew it in the 
 earlier volume, and that also is its character here. What was best in the earlier 
 work is retained in this, and it still remains the best the poet can do. 
 
 From the Morning Post. 
 
 The author appears to be a true poet, with all the natural fire and tenderness 
 the spark and dew that fall from Helicon. ... In the present collection of 
 poems, he has largely contributed to his own fame, which was already very great, 
 and to the pleasure of all who can listen with sympathy to the pathetic muse ex- 
 pressing her feelings in simple but inspired strains. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 Boston. 
 
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