16 NOVEMBER 1901, Page 53

Kith and Kin. Selected by Henry S. Salt. (G. Bell

and Sons. is. net.)—In this volume Mr. Salt gives a very good selection of the poems dealing with animal life in the English language. All the old favourites are here, such as the hares of Burns and Cowper, and Blake's " Tiger, Tiger, burning bright," and also many pieces—a few of them, indeed, rather stilted—that are not so familiar. Mr. Salt might have made his selection still more select had he kept out a good deal of moralising by Wordsworth and other poets quite as solemn and not so musical. To judge by their literary output, living poets have not much sympathy with animals. Mr. Watson's address to his cat as " Half loving kindli- ness and half disdain" and "Sphinx of my quiet hearth" is, however, full of power as well as sympathy.