Even in the period which is most fully covered, most readers will probably find omissions. Californians, particularly, despite the fact that they can claim seven of the thirty-six poets born between 1831 and 1852, will feel that another name should have honored those pages-the name of Ina Coolbrith. But in the last analysis everyone must make his own anthology, and the Oxford Book of American Verse perhaps will share the distinction of Themistocles, who received the unanimous second place when each elector cast the first ballot for himself. In a graceful introduction the editor gives warning of the book's necessary limitations, directs the reader to more exhaustive collections, and too modestly proclaims his own faults. It is the more necessary, therefore, that the reviewer should stress the positive advantages of the selection, its sanity and dignity, its provision of many famous poems in convenient form, together with others less familiar which the reader may welcome as new friends; and let us remind ourselves that a good anthology does not come into being automatically, by molecular attraction, but is just as much a work of creation, and an expression of personality, as an epic or a novel..

LIONEL STEVENSON.

Shakespeare Improved: The Restoration Versions in Quarto and on the Stage. By HAZELTON SPENCER. Harvard University Press. 1927. 406 pp.

Mr. Spencer's book is divided into two parts. In the first of these he relates the history of Shakespearean drama as acted in England from 1660 to 1710. He has written a clear and detailed account of the performances which were given, of the companies which offered them, of the actors who essayed the various rôles, and of the theaters in which the plays were staged. In the second part he discusses all the printed adaptations and acting versions as well as the relatively unaltered quartos which appeared during this period. He summarizes the changes made by Restoration dramatists in Shakespeare's plots and characterizations and cites abundant examples of typical alterations of Shakespeare's diction and versification. All this he has done with what I believe to be uncommon accuracy and as a result of painstaking research which has enabled him to settle several minor points hitherto the subject of debate. He has thereby brought within the limits of a single, well printed volume a mass of information indispensable to the student interested in the history of the Restoration stage and fascinating to anyone interested either in Shakespeare or in the variations of literary taste.

In his Prefatory Note, however, Mr. Spencer suggests an intention to do more than this. Recognizing that "the notion of Shakespeare entertained by any age affords an index to its thought in general," he writes, "I hope . . . . that this volume may serve in some measure to illuminate the Restoration mind." Every student of the literary history of England will sympathize with this hope. The nineteenth-century conception of the age of the second Charles and the second James has become untenable. We can no longer dismiss this whole period with a grudging recognition of its "occasional brilliance," with a sneer at its supposed worship of an absurd literary creed imposed upon it from without, and with a shudder occasioned by its "un-English immorality resulting from a reaction against the excesses of Puritanism." We know that these are the features of a wholly imaginary portrait, but we have no real portrait with which to replace it. Illumination from Mr. Spencer would have been most welcome; but—though he has collected fagots with great industry—he has failed to set them alight.

Mr. Spencer notes, for example, in D'Avenant what appears to him a "passion for perspicuity." He also observes that in Dryden's adaptations "a great many changes appear to have been made for the sake of clearness." But, when he comes to summarize his conclusions, he merely remarks, “as for the changes in diction, I have ventured to group some of the altered passages under such heads as . . . . simplification." He fails, that is, to derive any illumination from the fact that men as different as were Dryden and D'Avenant-not to mention the others who might be grouped with them had in common a "passion for perspicuity." But in just this fact may be found a clue to the understanding of many otherwise puzzling manifestations of the Restoration temper, of much that characterizes its manners and morals as well as its artistic activities.

If Mr. Spencer has failed to see the significance of the facts which he has laboriously brought together, his lack of insight may be attributed—in part at least—to the condescension with which he treats the period he has undertaken to study. One so sure as he that the efforts of the Restoration adapters were stupid blunders could not be expected to understand their aims.

Mr. Spencer's attitude, moreover, has had a most unfortunate effect upon his style. After giving us the somewhat unnecessary information that the title of the book is "writ sarcastic," the pub

lishers tell us on the jacket of the volume that it is an "ironical commentary." This is a kindly way of stating that Mr. Spencer has attempted to lighten the tedium of his task by the sort of humor which is only too correctly described as professorial. One example will suffice. Of the fifth act of All for Love Mr. Spencer writes, "She [Cleopatra] then proposes what might be called a respiration-strike; she says she will hold her breath and thus 'die inward.' Her native inability to refrain from conversation is destructive of this method of making a quietus." Confronted with this, one remembers Horace Howard Furness's query upon a similar occasion and asks, Has Mr. Spencer no discreet friend? It would, however, be unfair thus to conclude a review of Mr. Spencer's volume. Despite his shortcomings, Mr. Spencer deserves unstinted praise for his industry, his accuracy, and his ability to distinguish truth from unfounded conjecture. The fact that his book might have been better should not obscure the fact that its merits are undeniable.

W. H. DURHAM.