Tales from Shakspeare. By Charles and Mary Lamb. Edited, with
an introduction, by Alfred Ainger. (Macmillan.)—Mr. Ainger, as our readers probably know, has already edited with great judiciousness the essays and poems of Lamb. In the same type nd binding, we have now a volume, inferior, indeed, in interest to its predecessors, but scarcely less dear to the lovers of "Elia " as a work which the brother and sister wrote together. We have never thought it quite equal in style to the best of Charles and Mary Lamb's writings ; but it is dear to children. On Mary Lamb the most diffi- cult part of it devolved. Charles Lamb undertook the tragedies, leaving the comedies to his sister; and as the editor observes, "it is easier to tell the story of Hamlet effectively in narrative prose, than Twelfth Night, or A Midsummer Night's Dream. We agree with Mr. Ainger that there is no first introduction to the study of Shak- speare at once so winning and so helpful as that supplied by these narrative versions. Nothing, too, can be truer than the remark that "while Lamb and his sister keep themselves studiously in the back- ground in their character of guides and annotators, their presence is still felt throughout."
Previous page
