THE ARTE OF. ENGLISH POESIE
By George Puttenham Every student of English literature who has been made aware of the shortcomings of Arber's hitherto invaluable re- print will join in congratulating both the publishers and the editors of this new reprint (Canibridge University Preis, 21s.) on a most valuable piece of rescue-work. The Arte is the most comprehensive guide extant to the Tudor approach to poetry, and the impossibility of having it in a reliable form has long been recognised as a serious disadvantage both to scholars and to students of poetry and the period. Dr. Gladys WillcoOk and Dr. Alice Walker now present us with a revised text which embodies innumerable discoveries and corrections that were outside Arber's scope, three very valuable appendices dealing with matters of text and sources, and a useful bibliographical note. To add further to the debt in which they have placed us, they add a long introduction which is a model of scholarly discrimination. They take the question of authorship first; and dismissing the claims of Lord Lumley summarily, and those of Robert Puttenham with slightly more ceremony, finally decide, on grounds which few would care to contest, in favour of George Puttenham. The rest of the introduction is taken up with a discussion of the probable date of the Arts (the editors are able to show that much of it was written at least twenty years before 1589; the year in which it was first Published), with a discussjon- of . Puttenham's methods Of criticism, and with an analysis of the main topics with whi.% the Arte deals. The Cambridge University Press have added to their " courageous generosity " in undertaking publicatiert of the work by producing it in extremely attractive form. •
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