eighth part of a pound sterling. The monthly volumes are to he had separately, and each poet will be complete in himself, so that eclectics may indulge their philosophy in picking and choosing as they list; while he who desires, as so many do, a systematically arranged and uniform collection of the English Poets—"a Complete Body of English Poetry, edited throughout with judgment and integrity, and combining those features of research, typographical elegance, and economy of price, which the present age demands"—will do wisely, we venture to assert, to adorn his shelves with this tempting series. This venture of ours is indeed prompted by inspection of a single volume only; but we have too much confidence in the character and well-established repute of both editor and bookseller, not to be sanguine as to the long array in prospectû. And this we say the more freely, as we are utter strangers to both, and shall be as ready to snap and snarl away at either, where they cross our humour, as we should be, by malice prepense, were the publisher a Holywell-street man of straw, and the editor a rejected contributor to the poet's corner of the provincial press.
The works of each poet being, as aforesaid, independent of the rest, it has been decided to issue them without reference to chronological order—a wise decision, if only as providing variety and relief, and as enabling Mr. Bell's collaborateurs (for we presume he must have them, although himself the responsible and ruling overseer) to devote due time and pains to the particular subject in hand. The selection of Dryden for the first volume[1] is likewise to be applauded. Not but that many another of the brotherhood of bards might present more urgent claims, and far better scope, for the annotator, than does one so minutely and laboriously honoured in this respect as Glorious John. But an accurately illustrated version of Dryden for the mass of readers was an unquestionable desideratum, which if not clamorously expressed was not the less widely recognised. Meet and right it was that the "Annotated Edition of the English Poets" should begin with perhaps the most English among them all; with a poet whose masculine force, whose pith, substance, straightforwardness, clearness, freedom from cant, and superiority alike to pretentious mysticism and puling sentiment, are so fit lo be studied, had in remembrance, and laid to heart, in these days rife with sickly, drivelling, maudlin nescio quiddities—with fire-away flourishes and die-away trash. Be it allowed and lamented that Dryden is deficient, signally so, in finer feeling, in natural pathos, in unstudied passion—that, as Wordsworth complains, he had neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity[2]—or, in the line of his noble assailant,
Dryden has numbers, but he wants a heart:[3]
- ↑ • There is to be an Introductory Volume, the character of which necessarily involves some delay in publication, promising a succinct account of English Poetry from its earliest to its present epoch. Occasional volumes also are to be given, with annotated Specimens of those Poets whose works are not held deserving of entire reproduction. There are many such in our past literature, as well as our present. Many a worthy fellow lies lost amid his own lumber—crushed by his own unwieldy bulk—who has yet written something that might survive, if rescued from the chaotic incubus which stifles its vitality.
- ↑ Letter to Scott. 1805.
- ↑ Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax.
