, Mrs. Hamilton King, Miss Mary
Robinson, Mrs. Craik; Jean Ingelow, whose sonnet on An Ancient Chess King
is like an exquisitely carved gem; Mrs. Pfeiffer; Miss May Probyn, a
poetess with the true lyrical impulse of song, whose work is as delicate
as it is delightful; Mrs. Nesbit, a very pure and perfect artist; Miss
Rosa Mulholland, Miss Katharine Tynan, Lady Charlotte Elliot, and many
other well-known writers, are duly and adequately represented. On the
whole, Mrs. Sharp's collection is very pleasant reading indeed, and the
extracts given from the works of living poetesses are extremely
remarkable, not merely for their absolute artistic excellence, but also
for the light they throw upon the spirit of modern culture.

It is not, however, by any means a complete anthology. Dame Juliana
Berners is possibly too antiquated in style to be suitable to a modern
audience. But where is Anne Askew, who wrote a ballad in Newgate; and
where is Queen Elizabeth, whose 'most sweet and sententious ditty' on
Mary Stuart is so highly praised by Puttenham as an example of
'Exargasia,' or The Gorgeous in Literature? Why is the Countess of
Pembroke excluded? Sidney's sister should surely have a place in any
anthology of English verse. Where is Sidney's niece, Lady Mary Wroth, to
whom Ben Jonson dedicated The Alchemist? Where is 'the noble ladie Diana
Primrose,' who wrote A Chain of Pearl, or a memorial of the peerless
graces and heroic virtues of Queen Elizabeth, of glorious memory? Where
is Mary Morpeth, the friend and admirer of Drummond of Hawthornden? Where
is the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I., and where is Anne
Killigrew, maid of honour to the Duchess of York? The Marchioness of
Wharton, whose poems were praised by Waller; Lady Chudleigh, whose lines
beginning--

Wife and servant are the same,
But only differ in the name,

are very curious and interesting; Rachel Lady Russell, Constantia
Grierson, Mary Barber, Laetitia Pilkington; Eliza Haywood, whom Pope
honoured by a place in The Dunciad; Lady Luxborough, Lord Bolingbroke's
half-sister; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; Lady Temple, whose poems were
printed by Horace Walpole; Perdita, whose lines on the snowdrop are very
pathetic; the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, of whom Gibbon said that
'she was made for something better than a Duchess'; Mrs. Ratcliffe, Mrs.
Chapone, and Amelia Opie, all deserve a place on historical, if not on
artistic, grounds. In fact