Poems of the Love and Pride of England. Edited by
F. and M. Wedmore. (Ward, Lock, and Co.)—Of all the books that we have included under the heading of "Gift-Books" there is not one which it should be as great a pleasure to give and to receive as this. Mr. Frederick Wedmore and his daughter have put together in this volume (which is not unworthy in its outward shape of its precious contents) one hundred patriotic poems, ranging over some five centuries, from the ballads, probably not far from being contemporary, of Agincourt to Mr. William Watson's sonnet "to the Colonies," "Brothers beyond the Atlantic's broad expanse." Just now the Little Englanders—" the superior persons who hold that sentiments of pride and joy in the land are quite unworthy of their intelligence "—are out of favour. But any disaster—and the telegraph magnifies the ordinary casualties of war into disasters— will make them lift their heads again. Meanwhile we cannot do better than nourish the spirits of the young with the noble words in which Englishmen have expressed, generation after generation, the pride of feeling that they are "citizens of no mean city." The editors have done their task admirably well. There is not a single poem here which we would wish away ; if there are some which we miss it is not by any fault of theirs. It is indeed much to be regretted that Tennyson is not represented. It is difficult to imagine how the smallest commercial loss could have followed from the inclusion of, say, "The Ballad of the ' Revenge " and "Rifleman, form," nor is there the slightest pretence for saying that the great poet would have been found in unworthy company. The editors have included two "party" poems, as they call them, Milton's "Sonnet to Cromwell" and, by way of a counterbalance. Macaulay's "Jacobite's Epitaph," all the more effective because it is the work of the most thoroughgoing Whig that ever lived. We must give the latter piece, which will probably be less familiar to our readers than many others in tho volume :— " To my true Kiog I offered free from stain Courage and faith ; vain faith and courage vain. For him, I threw lands. honours, wealth. away, Atd one dea.r hope that was more prized than they. For h:m I languished in a foreign came, Grey.haired with sorrow in my manhood's prime ; Heard on Lavernia &swill's whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees; Beheld each night my home in fevered sleep, Each morning started from the dream to weep; Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave The resting•plaoe I asked, an early grave. Oh thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone, From that proud country which was once mine owe, By those white cliffs I never more must see. By that dear language which I speak like thee, Forget all fends, and shed one English tear O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here."
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