Warton's History of English Poetry, from the Twelfth to the
Close of the Sixteenth Century. 4 vols. Edited by W. Carew Hazlitt. (Reeves and Turner.)—This is another important addition to the already consider- able library which we owe to the editorial care of Mr. Hazlitt. Thomas
• Warbon, some time Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, and himself a writer of verse, both English and Latin, of no little elegance, loft unfinished at his death in 1790 his "History of English Poetry,' three volumes of which had been published in his lifetime. The work was republished in 1824 with a preface and additional notes, under the care of Mr. Richard Price, who was assisted by other writers, of whom Ritson is the best known. Another edition of little account appeared in 1840. Mr. Hazlitt now re-edits it, with the assistance of other annota- tors whose names are euffiolent to mark the value of the book. We cannot, indeed, but congratulate the good fortune which had secured for the editor the help of such scholars as Sir Frederic Madden, Mr. Thomas Wright, Mr. W. Aldis Wright, Rev. Walter Skeet, Dr. Richard Morris, and Mr. Furnivall. The plan pursued has been to correct obvious errors on the part of the author, but to leave untouched his critical remarks- on the authors of whom he treats, an exception being made, and we think quite rightly, In the expunging of Warton's chapter about the Ohatterton forgeries, works which, whatever their intrinsic value, have no place in a history of English poetry "to the close- of the sixteeth century." Warton's book, as it stands in Mr. Hazlitt's edition, has every right to be considered the standard authority on the subject.
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