8 DECEMBER 1906, Page 28

A Christmas Anthology. (G. C. Harrap and Co. 25. 6d.

net.)—These "Carols and Poems, Old and New," are set off by excellent paper and printing and a general good "get up." We do not much like the frontispiece, but the book is, on the whole, desirable.—Another among the anthologies of the year, and deserving a good place, is Sea Songs and BaUads, Selected by Christopher Stone, with Introduction by Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge (Clarendon Press, 2s. 6d. net). The collection contains just a hundred pieces, nearly all of them at least a century old. "Sea-songs" are still made, but they are of a different type. We cannot altogether regret the past when the present gives us such fine things as "Admirals All" ; still, all change brings its regrets. The introduction of steam, for instance, cannot be deplored by those who have their business in great waters, but it has almost banished the "chanty?' When a steam-engine is raising the anchor you do not sing to it as men in the merchant service—for the Royal Navy requires silence— used to sing when they worked at the capstan.