childish tastes and hearts. When I turn over its pages, I feel as if the children of England must have brought their favorite songs to Mr. Lang, and prayed, each one, that his own darling might be admitted,—as if they must have forced his choice into their chosen channels. Its only rival in the field, Palgrave's "Children's Treasury of English Song," is edited with such nice discrimination, such critical reserve, that it is well-nigh flawless,—a triumph of delicacy and good taste. But much that childhood loves is necessarily excluded from a volume so small and so carefully considered. The older poets, it is true, are generously treated,—Herrick, especially, makes a braver show than he does in Mr. Lang's collection; and there are plenty of beautiful ballads, some of which, like "The Lass of Lochroyan," we miss sorely from the pages of the "Blue Poetry Book." On the other hand, where, in Mr. Palgrave's "Treasury," are those lovely snatches of song familiar to our earliest years, and which we welcome individually with a thrill of pleasure, as Mr. Lang shows them to us once more?—"Rose Aylmer," "County Guy," "Proud Maisie,"
