Poems of John Donne. Edited by E. K. Chambers, with
an Introduction by George Saintsbury. (Lawrence and Millen.) —There is probably no poet about whom critical judgments differ more widely than with regard to Donne. His faults of misplaced wit and learning, fantastical illustration, and licen- tious ingenuity, are generally acknowledged, so, also, is his genius, but while some critics agree with Hallam, that Donne's conceits have not even the merit of being intelligible, and that it would be difficult to find three passages in his poems that the reader would care to look at a second time, others say with Mr. Saintsbury that although he is not a 'poetical artist he has the rarer merit of the inspired poetical creator. The truth is, we think, that if a number of marvellously fine thoughts scattered through- out his works as though by accident suffice to make a great poet, Donne deserves to be called one, but that if the faculty of song, the sense of form, and an ear sensitive to harmony be gifts de. manded of a poet, Donne's position, though far above that of mere versifiers, is below the niche upon which his admirers would place him. A beautiful thought hidden under a mass of doggerel is but a poor substitute for the "lofty rhyme" which satisfies ear and heart. Donne, whose memory is piously pre- served by Walton, will probably always have his readers and admirers. They will be grateful to possess his poetry in a form so admirably edited, and so beautifully printed, as the two volumes before us. The edition does credit to all concerned in its production, and to add that it belongs to Messrs. Lawrence and Badlen's "Muses' Library," is to say all that need be said to the lover and purchaser of beautiful books.
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