NEW Enrnons.—Poetical Works of John Milton. Edited, with Critical Notes,
by W. Aldis Wright, M.A. (Cambridge University Press. 5s. net.)—Mr. Wright gives in his preface a bibliographical account of the poems. These were all published in the author's life- time, with the exception of a few of the sonnets. No critical edition appeared for seventy-five years after the poet's death. Then Dr. Newton in 1749 published a variorum edition, completed by a second volume in 1752. This, of course, excludes Tickell's edition of 1720, in which, though there were Addison's notes, no revision of the text was attempted ; and it also excludes what, in the estimation of one person at least, was the critical edition par arceilence,—Bentley's in 1732. Happily it did not go beyond the "Paradise Lost "; but it remains a monument of the folly of which a great intellect, under certain conditions, is capable. It moves Mr. Wright to depart for once from his calm judicial attitude. "After consider- able experience," he writes, N Seel justified in saying that, in most cases ignorance and concett are the fruitful parents of con- jectural emendation." We need not stop ta apply the remark; our readers can do that for themselves. Mr. Wright has some sixty pages of critical notes, for which all the editions of any value have been carefully collated. If conjecture were allowable, a certain field for its mien:be would be found in the Latin poems, where Milton is not always, it would appear, exact.
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