24 SEPTEMBER 1904, Page 21

SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.

(Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review in other forms.) The Fourth Shakespeare Folio. (Methuen and Co. ..t4 4s. net.)— This volume, which can scarcely fail to rouse a certain regret for the stately volumes out of which our ancestors delighted to read, faithfully reproduces the Folio of 1695. Everything about it is full of interest. The order of the plays is curiously different from that to which we are accustomed, The Tempest coming first in the first division of "Comedies." At the end of the volume we have "seven plays never before printed in folios." These seven are Pericles, Prince of Tyre (the only one of the seven directly attri- buted to Shakespeare, and described as having been "published in his lifetime"), The London Prodigal, The Life and Death of Thomas Cromwell, The History of the Good Lord Cobham, The Puritan Widow, A Yorkshire Tragedy, and The Tragedy of Loerine. The pagination, which reaches altogether to 903, makes it appear that there are three parts in the volume. We sincerely hope that the enterprise of the publishers in giving us this volume, so interesting in every way, will be well repaid. The volume would make an admirable gift-book to a student of English literature.