A Second School Poetry - Book. Compiled by M. A. Woods. (Macmillan.)—One
notable feature of this selection is its originality. Miss Woods does not follow the common track of compilers. Some of the most popular of English poems, poems that generally take their place in books of this class as it were by natural right, are not to be found here. Among national lyrics, we look in vain for Campbell's " Mariners of England " and " Battle of the Baltic," for Wolfe's "Death of Sir John Moore," and for Drayton's magnificent lyrics, "The Battle of Agincourt." Thomson, Crabbe, and Cowper are not represented, and from Milton the compiler confines her ohoice to the "May-Song" and the " Song to Sabrina." On the other hand, there are lyrics from poets whose names are probably unknown to the general reader, and will certainly be unknown to the children for whom this volume is designed. Peels, Browne, Watson, Gouge, Breton, and R. Edwards belong to the retired walks of poetry, and have rarely made an appearance upon the public: highway. Among modern writers, humorists are quoted as well as poets, and Walt Whitman, whose shapeless rhapsodies it is the humour of some critics to regard as poetry, may be seen at his best in the threnody on Lincoln, a piece which, despite some execrable lines, has the redeeming virtue of genuine feeling. In her selection from the writings of living poets—some well known, and others familiar only to voracious readers of verse—Mies Woods displays excellent judgment. The book is intended, as the title•page shows, for schools ; but the dainty little volume will prove an excellent companion daring the vacation season to any reader who loves good poetry. We are sorry that Miss Woods has inserted the first painful stanza of Lamb's "Old Familiar Faces," which the writer had the good taste to omit when the poem was reprinted in 1818.
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