The Poets on Christmas. Selected and Edited by William Knight.
(S.P.C.K. 25. 6d.)—Dr. Knight begins his collection with Milton's great Christmas poem, "It was the winter wild," and a nobler beginning could hardly be. He does not bind himself to a chronological order, for Milton is followed by Prudentius, as Englished by Edward Caswall, " Bethlehem of noblest cities," and by John Mason Neale, " 0 that birth, forever blessed ! " and some ninety other names, of whom all but seven or eight are of British or American authors. Dr. Knight does not pretend to give the selected pieces exactly as they were written. He has followed Lord Selborne, than whom there could scarcely be a higher authority, in adapting them when adaptation has seemed necessary or expedient. The truth is that much nonsense is talked on this subject. We hear loud complaints about the liberties taken by the collectors of hymns with the language of the original, yet what an outcry there was when the genuine reading "welkin" was brought back in "Hymns Ancient and Modern." Altogether, this is an excellent little book.
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