3 FEBRUARY 1906, Page 23

Lyrists of the Restoration. Selected and Edited by John and

Constance Masefield. (E. Grant Richards. 3s. 6d. net.)—This is a pretty little book, recalling by its format the fashion of the period to which its contents belong. The introduction is, we must say, not wholly to our taste. The judgment on the morals of the Restoration society may be just, but it is scarcely appropriate. The question is obvious,—why take such pains with the poetry of "an age in which a brutal society aped a refinement it lacked and really hated" ? As a matter of fact, the poems which are here given are quite worthy of a place among English lyrics, but then they have been selected.