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[newspaper clipping]
THE LITERARY NEWS. 15
[picture of New England Scenery]
[text beneath is FROM "ON WINDS OF FANCY BROWN." Copyright, 1895, by Lee & Shepard
NEW ENGLAND SCENERY
[two columns]
atic theories. (Houghton, Miffin & Co.
N. Y. Tribute.

The Laureates.
The Boston Public Library contains but one
look devoted exclusively to the English laureates,
and that one is, to us, incomplete, as its
publication. In 1853, ends the long list with
Wordsworth, to the exclusion of Tennyson.

Now Tennyson is dead, and this just ended
period of the "vacant chair" in official English
verse made a most fitting point to stop,
turn back, and review the works and lives of
all those men who with varying degrees of
success have occupied the most conspicuous
position of poet laureteship in England.

Right in the height of this particular literay
interest and research comes Kenyon West's
new book, "The Lauretes of England" from
Ben Jonson to Alfred Tennyson, a conise,
well-planned, well-executed work, with an introduction
explaining the origin and history of
the laureateship as a court office, biographical
notes and style-criticisms of the fourteen poets,
with a generoua number of extracts from their
works, full-page portraits, and numerous text
illustrations.

Those full-page portraits! What a host of
unfamilar faces! could any one at random
give half the names of England's laureates?
Here is the list with the dated of office:
Ben Jonson, 1616-1627.
Sir William Davenant 1637-1668.
John Dryden, 1670-1689.
Thomas Shadwell, 1689-1692.
Nahum Tate, 1692-1715
Nicholas Rowe, 1715-1718.
Lawrence Rusden, 1718-1730,
Colley Cibber, 1730-1757.
William Whitehead, 1757-1785.
Thomas Warton, 1785-1790.
Henry James Pye, 1790-1813.
Robert Southey, 1813-1813.
William Wordsworth, 1843-1850.
Alfred Tennsyson, 1850-1892.

[second column]
Kenyon West has scarcely chosen to show
these poets only in their official capacity, but
rather in general poems more representative
of their authors' genius. Those extracts from
some of the earlier laureates are of moral necessity
short and scattered, but southey has
thirty pages, Wordsworth one hundted and
sixty, and Tennyson one hundred and ten.
this leaves one hundred, and sixty pages for
all those others back to "Rare Ben Jonson."

Altogether this is a book, a course of study,
invaluable to all students of English literature,
and should prove a most useful addition to
every private of public library. (Stokes.
$1.50) - Boston Literary World.

Idyllists of the County Side.
MR. GEORGE H. ELLWANGER has secured
many friends by his faculty of agreeable observation
and his vein of delightful sentiment.
Under the title of "Idyllists of the Country
Side." Mr. Ellwanger has published a little
volume of essays devoted to out-of-door writings
of Walton, Gilbert White, Thomas Hardy,
Jefferies, Thoreau, and Burroughs. The title,
it may be said in passing, is not quite accurate,
the only idyllist, in any exact sense of the
word, in this group being Jefferies. This, however,
is a small matter; the chief concern of
the reader is to know that Mr. Ellwanger has
made a very-charming book our of very charming
material. He is worshipper of nature and
a lover of those who have written about nature.
It is, therefore, not a critical comment
which he has prepared, but an appreciation
ful of sympathy, insighe, and affection. One
of the chapters which will awaken most interest
in this volume is that on "The Landscape
of Thamsa Hardy," a very charming bit of
literary study. Mr. Ellwanger's "In Gold and
silver" and "Story of My House" should also
be read by all. (Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.25.
-Independent.