Shorter Notices
The Lakes : An Anthology of Lakeland Life and Landscape. Edited by G. S. Sandilands. (Muller. 15s.)
ANTHOLOGIES with themes, abounding today, are often useful in drawing attention to unfamiliar material. It cannot, however, be said that much of the unfamiliar material in this volume is of a high order ; a great deal is minor verse which might well remain interred. Wordsworth, however, is here in a pleasant light—cutting switches from the hedge for children—though. attention is also called to his two-faced attitude over railways. The extracts from his poetry, though not always skilfully edited, confirm him as the great poet, soaring into the heights far above the other Lakeland versifiers. A sur- prising number of other celebrities appear—Coleridge, of course, and Dorothy Wordsworth (but why is only one extract given from the diaries?), Southey, Lamb, Keats, Shelley, Landor, De Quincey, the Arnolds, Charlotte Brontë, Miss Martineau, of course, and even Tennyson, Ruskin and Rossetti. The many titbits about eminent residents and visitors—witnessing to the long popularity of the Lake District as a literary centre—atone for the more dreary material. The arrangement under areas is unfortunate from a chronological point of view ; after a description of Wordsworth's funeral one comes on him negotiating about railways. Altogether a rather haphazard miscellany which might well have been shorter but contains many oddments of interest. The coloured illustrations by Professor Trist- ram are of the " pretty " type.
Previous page
