17 FEBRUARY 1912, Page 28

In the series of " Cambridge English Classics" (Cambridge University

Press) we have vol. i. of The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney, edited by Albert Feuillerat (4s. Ocl. net).—This volume contains the "Arcadia" or, to give its full title, "The Countesse of Pembroke's Arcadia," with an elaborate apparatus of textual information. This same " Countess() of Pembroke," "Sidney's sister," "fair and wise and good" as she was, had a way of altering the text of her brother's writing, as seemed good to her. Of these changes an editor has to beware. Curiously enough, he is helped, as the prefatory note tells us, by the unauthorized editions. These had, of course, never passed through her hands, and they are, therefore, more faithful to the true original. Future volumes are to contain The Poems, the Defence of Poesie, the Correspondence, and the Political Pamphlets, and Sir Philip's contributions to the translation of the Psalms and Mornay's Mild de la Religion Chrestienne, which the editor possesses the means of determining.