21 DECEMBER 1929, Page 26

The first volume of a new series, The Poets on

the Poets, is Miss V. Sackville-West's Andrew Marvell (Faber and Faber, 3s. 6d.). The essay is an excellent appreciation of Marvell, mide-still more enjoyable by the anthology of quotations which is scattered through the pages. - At times Miss Sackville-West seems a little uneasy on Marvell's account. She discusses whether his more fanciful poems can be admitted as the highest kind of poetry, and decides against them. Her remarks here are just enough ; but perhaps they are a little heavy-handed— as if we took it into our heads to consider whether Edward Lear was comparable to Milton. At the end of the essay Miss Sackville-West herself makes the same observation : " It is probably a mistake even to discuss the possibility of Marvell's admission to the higher plane. We should do better to accept him as a poet of the happy garden-state."