OTHER BOOKS.
Mr. Edmund Gosse, who contributes a Preface to this volume, has the pleasure of praising both a father and a son in one short notice. The former, the late Austin Dobson, Mr. Gosse calls with some justice " a writer who, in his own sphere, was almost perfect " ; while he commends the latter, Mr. Alban Dobson, the poet's youngest son and the compiler of this anthology, for his filial piety. Mr. Alban Dobson has, indeed, done his work well and given us a very pleasant little selection of verses and short passages of prose from his father's work, which was by no means limited in quantity, notwith- standing its narrow range. He has also given us a Biographical Note and a short Bibliography. The verse is perhaps not quite so well chosen as the prose, but there is little cause to quarrel with the anthologist in either. Austin Dobson was not one of those unequal writers who gain by having their work pruned and their best passages carefully set aside ; and most persons who know his work at all (and, granted some literary taste on the part of a reader, to know it is to admire it) will prefer to have it in bulk, or at least to select whole volumes rather than a number of chosen passages. But, every year, there will be more and more newcomers to the reading public/ "who know not" Dobson, and for them this anthology will provide an excellent range of "tasting samples" of the poet and essayist's exquisite wares. And, where Austin Dobson is concerned, to taste is to hunger for more.
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