The Poetical Works of Gray and Collins. Edited by Austin
Lane Poole and Christopher Stone. (Oxford University Press. 2s. 6d. net.)—This scholarly edition, printed in good clear type, contains of Gray not only the Odes and the Elegy, by which he is known and by which he wished to be judged, but also the "Ode for Music," the whimsical "A Long Story," and the seurriloue verses on Lord Sandwich entitled "The Candidate," besides the posthumous peems. It is interesting to see the austere Gray in his lighter moods, but his poetic fame rests solely on the ten poems which he included in the collected edition of 1768. Collins, whose works are edited with great care, seems destined for oblivion. His "Ode to a Lady on the Death of Colonel Ross in the Action of Fontenoy " was written in May, 1745, but reads to us who are steeped in the horrors of war as if the gentle Collins took no more interest in the superhuman bravery of the British centre at Vontenoy than he would have taken in the siege of Troy.
Previous page
