The Minor Poems of John Milton. Illustrated by Samuel Palmer.
(Seeley and Co.)—The illustration of Milton's Minor Poems was a cherished scheme of Samuel Palmer ; and his son gives in the preface to this volume a very interesting account of how he carried it out. Ordinary illustrations may be said to add very little to the real value of a book. The artist looks upon the book as so much letterpress, with which he has somehow to connect his designs. The relation between the mind of Samuel Palmer and the great poets whose ideas he set forth with his pencil were of a different kind. He loved them for themselves. Milton, certainly, he learnt in his early childhood to admire. Here the literary taste was, it would seem, in anticipation of the artistic. The result may be seen in this volume. These imaginative landscapes—for the figures are always sub- ordinate in them—are exactly suited to the poems which they illus- trate. They are executed by photogravure, the photographs being taken from the original water-colour drawings of the artist. And here it would be difficult to say how much the work, as we see it now, owes to the care and skill of Mr. A. H. Palmer. Photogravure has the advantage of reproducing the actual touch of the artist. How well it does it, may be seen in these plates. But the interpreter, or rather intermediary, has much to do, and is entitled to a hearty recognition of his services. Both the negative and the copper-plate owe much to his hand. And he must have the credit also for the successful translation of the brilliant colouring of the original paintings into the black and white with which we have to be content. The filial piety of Mr. A. H. Palmer disposes him to put these services into the back- ground, but they merit a hearty recognition. The typography and general appearance of the volume are perfectly satisfactory. The text is printed with the orthography of the original edition. This is practicable with Milton's earlier work, with what, in fact, he himself corrected for the press ; and we quite approve of the plan ; but it must be followed with discretion. To print Samson Agonistes, for instance, as it stands in the first edition, would be nothing less than absurd. It gives the spelling, not of Milton, but of some ignorant compositor.
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