4 DECEMBER 1909, Page 13

THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH POETRY. – The Romantic Movement in

English Poetry. By Arthur Symons. (A. Constable and Co. 10s. 6d. net.)--We can imagine no severer test of a critic's capacity than to set him to write a history of literature. To deal with a host of poets, most of them minor ; to do justice both to the great and the little ; to keep the critical sense active and the style fresh,—it is a trying ordeal for the best of men. Mr. Symons has written what is virtually a history of the Romantic Movement, including every writer who was born before 1800 and survived into the nineteenth century. Such a division is arbitrary, of course, for it excludes Burns ; but some artificial limit was necessary, and this is probably as good as could be found. In his introduction Mr. Symons lays down his canons of poetry. With his acute distinction between the spheres of poetry and prose we agree; but a definition of poetry which excludes Pope, most of Byron, and everything of Scott but one lyric seems to err on the side of narrowness. Notes varying from a few lines to a good many pages are given on eighty-six poets, and the "minors" are summarised in a concluding chapter. On the great masters like Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge we get the delicate, subtly interpretative criticism which Mr. Symons has led us to expect. But he is just as good and conscientious on the lesser people. For example, his notes on the author of " The Ingoldaby Legends," and on the Scottish weaver-poet, Thom, are exceedingly original and acute. The whole book is full of sane, illuminating criticism, and Mr. Symons's range of appreciation is notably wider than the principles which he lays down in his introduction.