Shorter Notices
BROWNING—even in no particular order, with a few of the poems preceded by rather gossipy notes and the rest bare—astonishes again in the ninety pages allotted to him not only by his exuberance, learning and sense of dramatic situation but by his lyrical quality. Mr. Bax has put in many of the best poems but also omitted many of the best. It is difficult, indeed, to see the criterion he has gone on ; it cannot be shortness, since The Flight of the Duchess is included. Mrs. Browning, with a pruned Aurora Leigh (so that it becomes readable in its gentle serious competence) and some of the sonnets, but not Pan, is a less impressive figure. Mr. Bax's introductions to the two poets are brief, superficial but readable. He is rather condescending to Browning. There does not seem much raison d'être for this " anthology " except that any- thing that makes poetry new and attractive has some raison d'être. Two of the better known portraits are pleasantly reproduced. There are a few misprints.
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