English Verse. Selected and arranged by E. W. Howson, M.A.
With a Preface by the Rev. J. E. C. Welldon, M.A. (Rivingtons.) —This selection of poems has been prepared for use among the younger boys of Harrow School, and the editor's aim has been to give schoolboys such verses as they will like as well as learn. He observes that he has met with no anthology which quite satisfied this requirement. That, of course, is possible. No selection can be made that shall be wholly satisfactory to reader and to critic. Every one who loves, as it deserves to be loved, the finest poetry in the world, looks for poems which he expects to find in such a volume, and will be disappointed if he does not find them there. This, however, is scarcely a sufficient reason for adding to the number of anthologies ; and after a careful examination of Mr. Howson's little volume, we cannot see that it fills a place hitherto unoccupied. The editor observes that some collections are too lyrical, "others, like the Children's Garland' or 'Children's Treasury,' are too childish in title or character." Mr. Patmore's book contains, no doubt, a few poems fitted for very young children, and though a remarkable and original selection, brim- ful of poetry, is not perhaps fitted for use in a Public School. Mr. Palgrave's "Children's Treasury" has its faults also, and the arrangement into periods is irritating. But it is far from being too childish for the younger boys of a great school, or, indeed, for boys of any age; and apart from the extracts from Shakespeare's plays chosen by Mr. Howson, there are few pieces in his volume of any high mark that are not also to be found in Mr. Palgrave's far more varied collection. Better than either, we think, for school purposes, is Mr. Mowbray Morris's "Poet's Walk," since, like Mr. Howson's, it is not confined to "lyrical poetry." In all such collections it is a mistake to choose only such poems as may seem to be on the level of a boy's under- standing. The divine music of Milton, the purity and beauty of Wordsworth's noblest song, may be felt, and powerfully felt, long before a young reader can say why it is that they impress him. Mr. Howson is therefore justified in inserting such poems as Milton's "Hymn on the Nativity," Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty," and Collins's "Ode to Evening." But the choice of these lyrics, and of Herbert's quaint stanzas entitled "The Pulley," shows, we think, that the editor has not always done what it has been his endeavour to do,—namely, "to look at each poem, as far as possible, with the eyes of a boy."
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