The latest and most complete collection of the Poems . of
Sir Walter Raleigh (Constable, 16s.) is remarkable not only for the value of the work itself, but also for the prefatory essay by the editor, Miss A. M. C. Latham, a scholar from Yorkshire. Her Introduction shows that rare quality, imagination, which lights up her work with beauty and truth. She has aimed directly at the heart of Raleigh's power. " Without the tradi- tions of a great house behind him, he had to create his own legend, and he did it magnificently." She shows him in his rebellion against the form and fantasy of Elizabethan art, to which he opposed his own personal fantasy of tragic pride and the unscrupulous greed of his luxurious nature. Miss Latham deals knowledgeably with his technical experiments, and their introspective direction, which made him the fore- funner of Donne and the Metaphysicals. Indeed, it is a long time since we have seen so fine and living a piece of scholarship.
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