in public interest. Such a state of things, in spite
of all pleading, is quite beyond reason; hence the purport of this small
Anthology is at once obvious.

A group of poets graced with rarest charm and linked together by several
and varied circumstances, each one figures here in unique evidence and
bold relief of individuality. They are called of the order Spenserian;
servants at the altar to the Pastoral Muse; and, in the reckoning of
time, belong to that glorious age of great Elizabeth. Nicholas Breton
(or Britton, as it is pronounced) and William Browne were both
contributors to _England's Helicon_, of 1614, and Browne and Wither each
submitted verses for _The Shepherd's Pipe_, a publication of the same
year. The former two were, in turn, under the patronage of that most
cultured family, the Herberts, Breton being a _protege_ of "Sidney's
sister, Pembroke's mother," whom Browne (and not Ben Jonson, as is
commonly said) eulogised thus in elegy. George Wither, being Browne's
intimate friend, was presumably not unappreciated by the kinsfolk of
George Herbert. Thus do they appear as in a bond of spiritual union.

Breton, a step-son to the poet Gascoigne, and the elder of our
fascinating trio, is conspicuous for an unswerving, whole-hearted
attachment to nature and rural scenes. It is in the pastoral lyric
where, with tenderest devotion, he pursues, untrammelled, a light and
free-born fancy. His fertile, varied muse, laden with the passionate
exaggerations of love-lorn swain, is yet charged with richest imagery
and thought, full to overflowing with joyous abandonment, and sweet with
the perfume of many flowers, culled in distant fields.

Wither, though best remembered by exploits in the political arena, is
none the less a poet of deep and purest feeling. To be sure, his best
and earlier work has all of that delightful extravagance and amorous
colouring peculiar to the age. But there is reflected a homely dignity
and mobile, felicitous vein in which the poet seems endowed with every
attribute of a melodist. Exquisite, graceful and diverse he, at times,
would soar to flights of highest inspiration and bedeck the page with
gems of rarest worth. In the heptasyllabic couplet he is decidedly
successful.

And lastly William Browne, than whom we have not a more modest and
retiring singer, here makes his bow with a slender portfolio of
excerpts. Whatever else may transpire it is certain that labour such as
his bears the assu