Le Morte Darthur. Globe Edition. (Macmillan and Co.)—This the eleventh,
edition of the "Globe" Morte Darthur, has a largely revised and re-written Introduction. It brings the bibliography of Sir Thomas Malory's book down to the present time, including an account of Dr. Sommer's edition, lately reviewed in these columns; and it gives what, for want of a better phrase, we may call the higher criticism of the old epic in its latest form. The editor, Sir Edward Strachey, maintains that the book deserves the name of an epic poem, "though wanting the accomplishment of verse," and he illustrates from Chaucer and the earliest romance- writers on the one hand, and from Caxton, Spenser, Milton, and Lord Tennyson on the other, the great influence which Malory has exerted on our literature and morals for the last four hundred years, and is still exerting upon them. The characteristic of the " Globe " Morte Darthur is that it gives the original text with modern spelling, which, says M. Gaston Paris, the great French authority on the Legends of Arthur, makes it the most convenient edition for reading.
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