THE ARCADIAN BUMPKIN.

The Shepherd's Week. By Mr. John Gay. (Blackwell. 4s. 6d. net. )

Tins little book, besides giving in pleasant form John Gay's neat and entertaining parodies of pastoral eclogue, embodies in a practical way a sermon on the text : " Put not your trust in editors." The editor, Mr. H. F. B. Brett:Smith, tells in his Introduction of how, trusting to a statement of Mr. John Underhill's in his edition of Gay's poems in

The Muses' Library, he was on the point of accepting the edition with the R. Burleigh imprint as the original one. " And but for an accident," he remarks, " readers of this

volume might have gone on trusting Mr. Underhill's very definite pronouncement." The accident referred to caused Mr. Brett-Smith to refer directly to original sources instead of taking his facts on trust, and the fact which emerged from

this unusual proceeding was that the R. Burleigh edition was not the original : R. Burleigh had been forestalled in the same year by Ferd. Burleigh. " The edition here reprinted," writes Mr. Brett-Smith, " is therefore of the first year, but not the first, though it is considerably the rarer of the two. Both the Burleigh editions correspond page for page, as indeed do all the early octavos of The Shepherd's Week, but Ferd. Burleigh's text has a much more liberal and eighteenth- century allowance of capital letters (he gives them to every noun), and is occasionally superior in printing a title or quota-

tion in distinctive italics."

• From this statement it would appear that to reprint the R. Burleigh edition instead of the other was a regrettable

error. The earlier edition is much pleasanter to look at with its frequent italics and capitals, so typical of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the only reason why it was not the edition chosen was that Mr. Underhill was inaccurate

and Mr. Brett-Smith trustful. But now we reach the climax of our sermon on editors, for, having occasion to consult the original edition, I discovered, on comparing it with the present reprint that (unless the reprint is not a reprint) the two Burleigh editions do not, as Mr. Brett-Smith says they do, correspond page for page, for page nine in the reprint contains eight lines 'of verse which do not appear in the earlier edition. This fact would have provided an excellent excuse—and the only excuse—for the reprinting of the R. Burleigh edition in place of the earlier one ; but, as it is, the most important point that emerges is that Mr. Brett-Smith is no more reliable than Mr. Underhill as an editor, and but for an accident

readers of this volume might have gone on trusting Mr. Brett-Smith's " very definite pronouncement."

So much for the editing. The book itself is pleasantly produced, and if the reproductions of the seven little engravings are somewhat blurred and heavy compared with the originals, it would be ungrateful to complain when the price of the book is so low, for they are good enough to make charming illustra- tions. The poems are delightful examples of light verse.

To-day the element of skit has almost faded out of them, but they remain a light, accomplished pastiche, full of quaint and vivid details with a genuinely rural atmosphere breathing through their conscious artificiality :—

" Whilom with thee 'twas Marian's dear delight

To moil all day, and merry make at night. If in the soil you guide the crooked share, Your early breakfast is my constant care. And when with even hand you strew the grain, I fright the theevish rookes from off the plain. In misling days when I my thresher heard, With nappy beer I to the barn repair'd ; Lost in the musick of the whirling flail, To gaze on thee I left the smoaking pail ; In harvest when the sun was mounted high, My leathern bottle did thy drought supply ; Whene'er you mow'd I follow'd with the rake, And have full oft been mm-burnt for thy sake ; When in the welkin gath'ring show'rs were seen, I lagg'd the last with Colin on the green ; And when at eve returning with thy carr, Awaiting heard the gingling bells from far ; Straight on the fire the sooty pot I plac't, To warm thy broth I burnt my hands for haste. When hungry thou stood'st staring, like an oaf, I she'd the luncheon from the barly loaf, With crumbled bread I thicken'd well thy mess. Ah, love me more, or love thy pottage less."

The Proeme, as delightful in its way as the verse, is more obviously comic :— !` That principally, courteous reader, whereof I would have thee be advertised (seeing I depart from the vulgar usage), is touching the language of my shepherds ; which is, soothly to say, such as is neither spoken by the country maiden nor the courtly dame ; nay, not only such as in the present times is not uttered, but was never uttered in times past ; and, if I judge aright, will never be uttered in times future. It having too much of the country to be fit for the court ; too much of the court to be fit for the country, too much of the language of old times to be fit for the present, too much of the present to have been fit for the old, and too much of both to be fit for any time to come."

That statement is, of course, conscious buffOonery, but nevertheless Gay would probably have been surprised to know how obviously, for later. generations, his verse would date from its period, despite his archaistic pranks.

MARTIN ARMSTRONG.