The lovers of British Poetry have an opportunity of securing
an excellent and ample library of the best parts of our best authors— in two volumes. Dr. Anuses Selection of British Poets, from Jostsoer to BEATTIE, has been some time before the world. When the publishers, Messrs. LONGMAN and Co. presented the volume to SOUTHEy, he remarked that the editor had begun just where he ought to have left off,—meaning that the modern poets had been frequently republished, whereas the fathers of our poetry, from CHAUCER to JONSON, were scarce and inaccessible to the common reader. This is most true ; and the volume for which we are in- debted to Dr. SOUTHEY, is as valuable from the rarity and expen- sive nat tire of its contents, as for the intrinsic excellence of the poems. It contains the whole of the Faery Queen and of DRAYTON.S Polyol- Lion. The principal part of CHAUCER, the whole of TA sso, the greater part of Lord BROOKE, a selection from WITHER (which ought, if it had been possible, to have been greater), HAWES'S Pastime of Plea- sure, HABINGTON nearly entire, together with copious selections from the Earl of SURRY, GASCOIGNE, SKELTON, DANIEL, DAVIES, DONNE, CAREW, PHINEAS FLETcHER, DRUMMOND, BROWNE, and DAVENANT. The selection from the poetry of a subsequent age, running from JONsON to BEATTIE, was a matter of convenience and comparative usefulness ; but this collection, making a first volume to the other, puts into the possession of the reader works which he could nowhere procure in a collective form, and which it would be difficult to get together in a separate one, and that at the expense of much time and money. It is true they are all de- scribed and extracted from in the Retrospective Review; but the nature of a critical work limited the extent of the extracts within comparatively a small compass.
There is one great omission, and, as it is unexplained, we can- not help considering it unpardonable,—we mean selections from CRASHAw's admirable poems. Surely a work which contains HABINGTON and LOVELACE, should not have omitted CRA- SHAW.
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