SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading les notice such Books of the week as have nei two swerved for review in other lortna] Middle English Humorous Talcs in Verse. Edited by George H. McKnight, Ph.D. (D. C. Heath. 28.6d. net.)—The hand- books published in Section II. of the " Belles-Lettres " series are invaluable to students of Middle English. These three "humorous tales" in themselves are chiefly remarkable for the lack of any particular brilliancy in plot or style, and may well give rise to the speculation whether the sense of humour, like the sense of harmony, has not been invented as well as perfected in the course of the last four centuries. But the preface and notes are as careful and as useful as one has learned to expect them to be, when they come from the hand of one of those American scholars who have helped to make Middle English a sane and pleasant study for the ordinary student, instead of an obscure subject for specialists and antiquarians. The bibliography is most valuable, end the glossary so clear as to be a help to the beginner, and not the source of bewilder- ment that it is in too many books of this kind. Professor McKnight admits that it is hard to communicate those "pleasures of the chase" which the seeker for the sources of such old tales experiences; but the study of his preface should make plain, even to those who have never pursued that most enthralling sport, how great is the delight of tracking a story from land to land and from language to language down the centuries. For the fascination of Middle English lies not only in its place in our unbroken heritage, but because it links us, as it linked our forefathers, with those ancient routes of trade and war, overland and oversee, down which there came to him, out of the East, not only his silk and his spices, but his treasure of story and song.
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