Messrs. Dent and Co. are bringing out a series of
"Illustrated English Poems " (3s. 6d.), edited by Mr. Ernest Rhys. Of the four sent for review, The Songs of Shakespeare, illustrated by Mr. Paul Woodroffe, is the best. He has not attempted to reproduce in picture-writing the several images by which Shakespeare has pictured men and things in words ; but looking at them as a whole, he has given them to us with details all his own. He has a delicate touch, and his pictures have that peculiar effect that can be characterised as quality. Mr. Laurence Housman's illustrations of The Sensitive Plant are so fantastic as to be hardly intelligible. Oddly enough, the best of them, " Night in the Garden," is put in upside down, as is also one of Mr Richardson's illustrations to The Deserted Village, a pretty wash drawing of sheep being driven along a moorland road. The picture of an old woman with a bundle of sticks (p. 30) is also worth notice. Mr. R. W. A. Rouse has illustrated the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. His pictures are too picturesque for the classical style of the poem to be appropriate. Mr. Rbys's little introduc- tions are pleasantly written, and the paper and printing, both of the- photogravures and the letterpress, of these books, is all that could be wished for.
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