6 MARCH 1897, Page 26

In A Treasury of Minor British Poetry (Edward Arnold), Mr.

Chnrton Collins has given us an interesting collection of short pieces of verse. His aim is not to make an anthology of all the greatest things in our lyric verse, but rather to collect true pieces of poetry which have escaped other hunters in the same field. On the whole he has been fairly successful. Many of the poems in his book, though familiar to students of our literature, will be quite new to the general public, while others will be discoveries even to those who have read widely. All lovers of Elizabethan literature will find with delight Ford's exquisite- " Can you paint a thought, or number Every fancy in a slumber,"

which, as a rule, has been cold-shouldered by the makers of anthologies. Mr. Collins includes some very vigorous and humorous verses by Dr. W. Pope which will, we imagine, be new to most readers. "The Old Man's Wish" has about it a most pleasant ring of eighteenth-century jollity. The anthology has, indeed, quite a character of its own.