296 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



poems as those of Herbert, composed in the upper 

 chambers of the soul that open toward the sun's rising, 

 is to confound piety with dulness, and the manna of 

 heaven with its sickening namesake from the apoth- 

 ecary's drawer. The " Enchiridion " of Quarles is hardly 

 worthy of the author of the " Emblems," and is by no 

 means an unattainable book in other editions, nor a 

 matter of heartbreak, if it were. Of the dramatic works 

 of Marston and Lilly it is enough to say that they are 

 truly works to the reader, but in no sense dramatic, 

 nor, as literature, worth the paper they blot. They 

 seem to have been deemed worthy of republication be- 

 cause they were the contemporaries of true poets ; and 

 if all the Tuppers of the nineteenth century will buy 

 their plays on the same principle, the sale will be a 

 remunerative one. It was worth while, perhaps, to re- 

 print Lovelace, if only to show what dull verses may be 

 written by a man who has made one lucky hit. Of the 

 "Early English Poetry," nine tenths had better never 

 have been printed at all, and the other tenth reprinted 

 by an editor who had some vague suspicion, at least, of 

 what they meant. The Homer of Chapman is so pre- 

 cious a gift, that we are ready to forgive all Mr. Smith's 

 shortcomings in consideration of it. It is a vast placer, 

 full of nuggets for the philologist and the lover of poetry. 

 Having now run cursorily through the series of Mr. 

 Smith's reprints, we come to the closer question of 

 How are they edited ? Whatever the merit of the original 

 works, the editors, whether self-elected or chosen by the 

 publisher, should be accurate and scholarly. The edit- 

 ing of the Homer we can heartily commend ; and Dr. 

 Rimbault, who carried the works of Overbury through 

 the press, has done his work well ; but the other vol- 

 umes of the Library are very creditable neither to Eng- 

 lish scholarship nor to English typography. The Intro- 



