history. Having been cognisant of the progress of the book from time to time, I am able to say that the specimens have by no means been taken at random, but are a careful selection of what seemed best and most suitable in each case, after wide readings and markings in the various authors by the compiler herself. Pains have been taken also to secure the best texts. In the Chaucer specimens, for example, there has been reference always, where that would serve, to the splendid "Six-Text Print of the Canterbury Tales," edited for the Chaucer Society by Mr. Furnivall, with as accurate fidelity to the readings there authorised as would consist with the style of spelling which the purpose of this volume obliges. So, for the Langland specimens, Mr. Skeat's admirable edition of Langland for the Early English Text Society has been closely studied, with a retention of such particulars of archaic spelling as might bring out better to the reader's ear the peculiar alliterative rhythm. For the later writers the standard editions, where such exist, have been resorted to, including Mr. Laing's Dunbar and Lyndsay, Mr. Small's Gavin Douglas, Mr. Grosart's fine and perfect editions of Sidney, Donne, and some others of the rarer Elizabethans, and a few of Mr. Arber's valuable reprints. The Introductions are purposely brief, being confined to such biographical and critical notices of the poets in succession as might insert them in their proper places in the history of English poetry, while indicating their individual peculiarities. The Footnotes consist mainly of explanations of words or allusions. For the convenience of many readers, the explanation of an obscure word is repeated nearly as often as it occurs; and an explanation is sometimes given where to some readers it might seem unnecessary.

DAVID MASSON.

Scotland of the sixteenth century will seem much less of a mere barbaric blurr to one who knows something of Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, and Lyndsay, than it is usually figured from the pages of professed historians; and the student of Langland and Chaucer will cut deeply into the England of the fourteenth century with that two-handed axe.

Books of Extracts or Specimens of old English Poetry can never supersede the necessity, for all thorough and scholarly purposes, of direct and wide ranging among the originals. They have, nevertheless, their uses. They are convenient for those who have not access to the originals on any large scale, or have not leisure for extensive reading; they may create a taste for such more extensive reading when leisure will permit; and they are all but indispensable companions for those who may be studying the history of English literature chronologically by means of manuals. By presenting many old poets close together in their historical succession, they even press certain things upon the attention more effectively than would a course of diffuse reading. Passing from poet to poet, and from group to group of poets, one notes more easily and strongly their connections and overlappings, and the curious changes, from generation to generation, of poetical tastes and forms.

In the present Volume of Selections the intention is rather literary than philological. There are very excellent volumes of extracts already, illustrating, for students of the English language, the old state of that language and its gradual progress. This volume has been compiled, therefore, on the principle of selecting specimens of literary interest, characteristic of the successive poets at their best, and so furnishing a chronological representation of the non-dramatic poetry of England and Scotland from Chaucer's time to Herrick's that may be enjoyable by itself, and may yet be useful in connec

history. Having been cognisant of the progress of the book from time to time, I am able to say that the specimens have by no means been taken at random, but are a careful selection of what seemed best and most suitable in each case, after wide readings and markings in the various authors by the compiler herself. Pains have been taken also to secure the best texts. In the Chaucer specimens, for example, there has been reference always, where that would serve, to the splendid "Six-Text Print of the Canterbury Tales,” edited for the Chaucer Society by Mr. Furnivall, with as accurate fidelity to the readings there authorised as would consist with the style of spelling which the purpose of this volume obliges. So, for the Langland specimens, Mr. Skeat's admirable edition of Langland for the Early English Text Society has been closely studied, with a retention of such particulars of archaic spelling as might bring out better to the reader's ear the peculiar alliterative rhythm. For the later writers the standard editions, where such exist, have been resorted to, including Mr. Laing's Dunbar and Lyndsay, Mr. Small's Gavin Douglas, Mr. Grosart's fine and perfect editions of Sidney, Donne, and some others of the rarer Elizabethans, and a few of Mr. Arber's valuable reprints. The Introductions are purposely brief, being confined to such biographical and critical notices of the poets in succession as might insert them in their proper places in the history of English poetry, while indicating their individual peculiarities. The Footnotes consist mainly of explanations of words or allusions. For the convenience of many readers, the explanation of an obscure word is repeated nearly as often as it occurs; and an explanation is sometimes given where to some readers it might seem unnecessary.

DAVID MASSON.