19 MAY 1928, Page 3

We regret to record the death of Sir Edmund Gosse,

critic and poet, who died on Wednesday, aged seventy- 'eight. He entered the world of literature about the same time as his friends Andrew Lang and Austin Dobson. His was not a wholly accurate mind—the temper of the poet .often took the place of the calm and scientific judgment of the critic—but he had immense zest and enthusiasm. In every department of literature he was for ever encouraging youth and beckoning on men of all ages to fresh adventure. He was therefore, and justly so, a real power in literature. His best known book, Father and Son, is a very remarkable study of his relations with his father, who was an uncom- promising Plymouth Brother. He was the first English- man to " discover " Ibsen, about whom he wrote unsigned articles' in the Spectator in 1872.