CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
Mr. Henry Frowde, of the Oxford University Press, has put forth three very beautiful editions of Wordsworth's Poems, edited by Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, M.A., who is, we rather infer from his introduction, some relative of Mrs. Wordsworth's. He follows the poet's own arrangement of his poems as he published them in 1849-50. Mr. Hutchinson remarks, truly enough, that no certain chronological order can be assigned. Still even an approximately chronological order is very useful, but many will prefer the order in which Wordsworth himself chose to arrange his poems at the end of a long life, simply because it was his. The chronological table of the events of Wordsworth's life, which Mr. Hutchinson has prefixed to the poems, is very interesting, and may be taken as per- fectly accurate. The single volume printed on ordinary paper, which is of course the cheapest of the three editions, is about the size and weight of Mr. John Morley's edition published by Mac- millan. The India paper edition,—which is, we should say, about half the weight,—is wonderfully clear and good, but of course more costly, as the paper itself is a perfect miracle of manufacture. Though so thin, the print never shows through, and yet the type is perfectly clear and legible. The little morocco edition, in five volumes, in a box, also printed on the exquisite India paper, makes one of the prettiest gift-books that has ever come across us.
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