THE GOLDEN AGE OF ENGLISH

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 143, 20 June 1925, Page 17

THE GOLDEN AGE OF ENGLISH

"Songs from the Elizabethans." Compiled by J. C. Squire. London: Herbert "Jenkins/ ■

Mr. Squire has done good service to the present generation in bringing before it in a. handy form many examples of:the songs of Elizabethan poets in. this collection. Before introducing them to his readers he makes some enlightening and graceful comments of his oiyn upon the 3& songs. He has regarded as available for his choice, air Elizabethan puems which were published with music, as well as poems, desoribed by their authors as "songs, and all other, poems «iv to them. In his preface Mr. Siinire how love is the principal theme of the songs of those spacious tnies. In them (he remarks) the camp one scarcely ever enters ; there is an occasional visit to tho tavern ; there are uroadly comic song«,. witph's songs, gipsy-gongs; but most frequently the songs aro about shepherds and shepherdesses in a pastoral landscape, or with a Lutanist and his lady in a Tudor hall or garden. Cory don and Phillis, and bti-ephon and Chloe flit through these songs, and Tityrus pipes to Amaryllis. I here are songs of grief, but lighlhusirtedneas characterises most of the lyrics. • Poet and musician in that age reacted on one another; and Campion was both poet and musician. Mr. aqmro ha» arranged the songs in cbronoJogical order except in cases of anomyunty. This arrangement, he explain, enables a progression in style to bo n<> Meed. His own able comments upon the-verse, and his analysis of some of the examples contained in the anthology, make this most recent addition to the -Jirestdo Library series of Herbert Jenkins and Co.-not only of interest to s l,?rtfr?lrt der ' but s Pecialb' to the student of Shakespeare. Among the other Elizabethans _whose verse is represented m the collection, aro Robert Wever, Ed9n, v?v, (E*rl of Oxford), John Still Nicholas Breton, Edmund SpencWalter Raleigh/ Michael Dravtonf Robnit Greene, Bishop Andrews, Thomas Campion, hen Jonson, Thomas Dekker Uiomaa Heywood, Beaumont and I lefceher, John Ford, George ' Wither dowr.to Sir Richard Fanshawewho J.ed „, 1666. Mr, Squire's skimming has been thorough.