Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century : Contributions towards a
Literary History of the Period. Edited by W. Robert- son Nicoll, MA, LL.D., and Thomas J. Wise. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—This large and beautifully printed volume is the first of a series suggested by Nichols's ten volumes of "Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century." The editors rely to a large extent upon manuscript material, but "use will be made of practically inaccessible texts." Unpublished letters, biographies, and bibliographies, will also furnish a portion of the fare provided, and illustrations and numerous facsimiles will be given in each volume. A work of this class is of course intended for the curious reader, and not for the general public. The table of contents is varied. An account of the poet-artist Blake's trial for sedition from contemporary manuscripts, makes the story clearer than his biographer was able to make it. Mr. Buxton Forman contributes a poem on the death of Lord Tennyson, and has much to say about the poet Thomas Wade, two of whose poems are quoted from the originals in his library. Already Mr. Forman had done justice, and possibly more than justice, to Wade, in Mr. Miles's "Posts and Poetry of the Century ; " and that about a sixth part of this volume should be devoted to an imitative and comparatively insignificant poet, will strike most readers as an error. In addition to other poems quoted, space is found for fifty sonnets, each of whioh fills a page. This, it must be allowed, is handsome burial for a not ill-endowed versifier. Very interesting are the pages containing " The Landor-Blessington Papers." "Their chief constituent is a literal transcript from a voluminous bundle of papers in the autograph of Landor," on some of which biographers have already drawn. Two true poets who are less known than they deserve to be, receive duo recognition here –R. H. Horne, and Charles Wells. From the latter poet a fine scene is inserted, omitted for dramatic reasons from "Joseph and his Brethren." There is also a bundle of interesting letters from Shelley to Leigh Hunt, and a bibliography of Browning's works, modestly described as " materials " for one, which fills about two hundred and sixty pages.
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