Chaucer Memorial Lectures. Edited by . Percy W. Ames. (Asher and
Co. 6s. net.)—This volume contains five lectures giving in a popular form an account of Chaucer, his times, and his poems. The editor furnishes an introduction in which he speaks, among other matters, of the poet's habit of " conveying " what he wanted from other authors, pointing out with what singleness of mind this was done. He did not seek to get glory from other men's work, as does the modern plagiarist ; it was good matter, aid he made use of it. Mr. Imbert-Terry writes on Chaucer's poetical contemporaries, Mr. S. Davey on the Paston Letters as the best revelation of the social life of the time (Chaucer, how- ever, died nearly a quarter of a century before the earliest Past= Letter), Mr. W. E. A. Axon on " Italian Influence on Chaucer," Mr. M. H. Spielmann on " The Portraits of Geoffrey Chaucer," and the editor on "The Life and Characteristics of Chaucer." The volume needs no apology on the score of being superfluous in view of the Chaucer literature already in existence. It popularises this very usefully.
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