The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell. Edited, with Memoir and
Notes, by George A. Aitken. (George Bell and Sons.)—Parnell, a beneficed Irish clergyman, was one of the Queen Anne wits, and his gifts as a verseman have been amply honoured by poets and critics. Pope edited his friend's works, his biography was written by Goldsmith, his poems were criticised by Johnson, and in our own century he has won the praise of Campbell. He appears to have discovered his peculiar genius not many years before his death, and the few poems upon which his fame rests have a musical and meditative charm. Mr. Aitken, who is familiar with the period and the poet, has shown a sound judgment, both in what he has done and left undone. Scott's friend, George Ellis, thought that whatever any fool might have written, and whatever might be suppressed without exciting a moment's regret in a poet's admirers, ought to be suppressed by an editor. The rule might prove an awkward one if generally followed ; for how is the world to be assured that an editor's conception of a poet's folly may not indicate his own ? We hold, however, that Mr. Aitken has done well in this edition of Parnell to omit a number of Scripture pieces, which serve but to destroy the simplicity of the Old Testament story. In doing so, the editor follows, as Pope did, what would seem to have been the wishes of the poet. "What he gave me to publish," Pope writes, "was but a small part of what he left behind him ; but it was the best, and I will not make it worse by enlarging it." The volume belongs to the beautiful reissue of the "Aldine Poets."
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