rk, with satisfactory results. It is therefore no small
disappointment to find that the latest volume, "The Poems of
Shakespeare," is but a reprint from stereotyped plates of the Rev.
Alexander Dyce's text, notes and memoir.

The Rev. A. Dyce.

Now, of the Rev. Alexander Dyce it may be fearlessly asserted that his
criticism is not for all time. Even had he been less prone to accept
the word of John Payne Collier for gospel; even had Shakespearian
criticism made no perceptible advance during the last quarter of a
century, yet there is that in the Rev. Alexander Dyce's treatment of
his poet which would warn us to pause before accepting his word as
final. As a test of his aesthetic judgment we may turn to the "Songs
from the Plays of Shakespeare" with which this volume concludes. It
had been as well, in a work of this sort, to include all the songs;
but he gives us a selection only, and an uncommonly bad selection. I
have tried in vain to discover a single principle of taste underlying
it. On what principle, for instance, can a man include the song "Come
away, come away, death" from _Twelfth Night_, and omit "O mistress
mine, where are you roaming?"; or include Amiens' two songs from _As
you Like It_, and omit the incomparable "It was a lover and his lass"?
Or what but stark insensibility can explain the omission of "Take, O
take those lips away," and the bridal song "Roses, their sharp spines
being gone," that opens _The Two Noble Kinsmen_? But stay: the Rev.
Alexander Dyce may attribute this last pair to Fletcher. "Take, O take
those lips away" certainly occurs (with a second and inferior stanza)
in Fletcher's _The Bloody Brother_, first published in 1639; but Dyce
gives no hint of his belief that Fletcher wrote it. We are, therefore,
left to conclude that Dyce thought it unworthy of a place in his
collection. On _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ (first published in 1634) Dyce
is more explicit. In a footnote to the Memoir he says: "The title-page
of the first edition of Fletcher's _Two Noble Kinsmen_ attributes the
play partly to Shakespeare; I do not think our poet had any share in
its composition; but I must add that Mr. C. Lamb (a great authority in
such matters) inclines to a different opinion." When "Mr. C. Lamb" and
the Rev. Alexander Dyce hold opposite opinions, it need not be
difficult to choose. And surely, if internal evidence count for
anything at all, the lines

"Maiden pinks, of odour faint,
Daisies sme