26 SEPTEMBER 1925, Page 29

SONGS OF THE GARDENS. Edited by Peter Warlock. (The Nonesuch

Press. 21s. net.)

IT was a happy thought to make an anthology of the songs that were sung at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Marylebone and Sadler's Wells during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Here, then, are a score or so of the gossamer-thin airs that delighted the beaux and belles of those superficial

and slightly hectic days. Traces of Handel are in most of them, and the sweetness of Gluck ; deliciously they recapture the age ; and, if none of them are likely ever to become very popular, all were worth saving. They are printed as only the Nonesuch Press could print them, and decorated with some alarming eighteenth-century ornaments engraved by Mr. W. M. R. Quick.