as this:--

"Sir John Suckling was incapable of understanding Carew in his
final days of sickness and depression, as he had been (and this
is conceding much) in their earlier days of reckless gallantry.
His vile address 'to T---- C----,' etc., 'Troth, _Tom_, I must
confess I much admire ...' is nothing more than coarse badinage
without foundation; in any case not necessarily addressed to
Carew, although they were of close acquaintance; but many other
Toms were open to a similar expression, since 'T.C.' might apply
to Thomas Carey, to Thomas Crosse, and other T.C. poets."

It is not pleasant to rake up any man's faults; but when an editor
begins to suggest some new man against whom nothing is known (except
that he wrote indifferent verse)--who is not even known to have been
on speaking terms with Suckling--as the proper target of Suckling's
coarse raillery, we have a right not only to protest, but to point out
that even Clarendon, who liked Carew, wrote of him that, "after fifty
years of his life spent with less severity and exactness than it ought
to have been, he died with great remorse for that license, and with
the greatest manifestation of Christianity that his best friends could
desire." If Carew thought fit to feel remorse for that license, it
scarcely becomes Mr. Ebsworth to deny its existence, much less to hint
that the sinfulness was another's.

A correction.

As a minor criticism, I may point out that the song, "Come, my Celia,
let us prove ..." (included by Mr. Ebsworth, with the remark that
"there is no external evidence to confirm the attribution of this song
to Carew") was written by Ben Jonson, and is to be found in
_Volpone_, Act III., sc. 7, 1607.

But, with some imperfections, this is a sound edition--sadly
needed--of one of the most brilliant lyrical writers of his time. It
contains a charming portrait; and the editor's enthusiasm, when it
does not lead him too far, is also charming.

"ROBINSON CRUSOE"

April 13, 1895. Robinson Crusoe.

Many a book has produced a wide and beneficent effect and won a great
reputation, and yet this effect and this reputation have been
altogether wide of its author's aim. Swift's _Gulliver_ is one
example. As Mr. Birrell put it the other day, "Swift's gospel of
hatred, his testament of woe--his _Gulliver_, upon which he expended
the treasures of his wit, and into which he instilled the concentrated
essence