sh Poetry"; but of what avail
is it to challenge an indomitable race?

I am sorry Mr. Leonard has not given the name of this critic; but have
a notion it must be Mr. Andrew Lang, though I am sure he is innocent
of the split infinitive quoted above. It really ought to be Mr. Lang,
if only for the humor of the means by which Mr. Leonard proposes to
silence him. "I am confident," says he, "that the voice of the great
dog-loving public in this country would drown that of the critic in
question." Mr. Leonard's metaphors, you see, like the dyer's hand, are
subdued to what they work in. But is not the picture delightful? Mr.
Lang, the gentle of speech; who, with his master Walton, "studies to
be quiet"; who tells us in his very latest verse

"I've maistly had my fill
O' this world's din"--

--Mr. Lang set down in the midst of a really representative dog show,
say at Birmingham or the Crystal Palace, and there howled down! His
_blandi susurri_ drowned in the combined clamor of mongrel, puppy,
whelp, and hound, and "the great dog-loving public in this country"!

"_Solvitur ululando_," hopes Mr. Leonard; and we will wait for the
voice of the great dog-loving public to uplift itself and settle the
question. Here, at any rate, is the book, beautiful in shape, and
printed by the Constables upon sumptuous paper. And the title-page
bears a rubric and a reference to Tobias' dog. "It is no need," says
Wyclif in one of his sermons, "to busy us what hight Tobies' hound";
but Wyclif had never to reckon with a great dog-loving public. And Mr.
Leonard, having considered his work and dedicated it "To the
Cynics"--which, I suppose, is Greek for "dog-loving public"--observes,
"It is rather remarkable that no one has yet published such a book as
this." Perhaps it is.

But if we take it for granted (1) that it was worth doing, and (2)
that whatever be worth doing is worth doing well, then Mr. Leonard has
reason for his complacency. "It was never my intention," he says, "to
gather together a complete collection of even British poems about
dogs."--When will _that_ come, I wonder?--"I have sought to secure a
representative rather than an exhaustive anthology." His selections
from a mass of poetry ranging from Homer to Mr. Mallock are judicious.
He is not concerned (he assures us) to defend the poetical merits of
all this verse:--

"--O, the wise contentment
Th' anthologist doth find!"

--but he has provided it wi