The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1881-07-21
LITERARY NOTICES.

HARPER'S CYCLOPEDIA OF BRITISH
AND AMERICAN POETRY. Edited
by EPEs SARGENT. Royal 8vo, lllu.
minated Cloth, Colored Edges. $3.50.
We are indebted to Harper Brothers,
Of New York, tor this magnificent vol
urne, the latest and best compilation of
poems and sketches of poets, which, has
issued from the American Press. Mr..
Sargent had just put the finishing touch.
es to this work when he Was called to
another life. The Publishers introduce
it by the following
PUBLISHERS NOTE.
The concluding pages of this volume
were put in type only few days before
the genial and cultured editor passed
away from the scene of his lab0rs. 1t
was the GROWING work Of life devot-
ed to literature. Projected several years
ago. It engrossed Mr.. Sargent y thou ghts
and time almost to the very last day of
his life, and every page passed under his
careful supervision. Although he did
not live to see it published, lie had the
pleasure Of putting the final touches tc
it, and of knowing that his work was
finished
Mr.. Sargent was eminently fitted for
the preparation of 4 work of this kind.
Few men possessed a wider or more
profound knowledge IF English litera-
ture, and his judgment was clear, acute
and discriminating. He designed this
volume especially for household use;
and he could have desired 10 kindlier
remembrance than that associated with
the innocent pleasure and refining lntlu-
ence it will carry to many domestic
fireside. HARPER & BROTHERS.
In the May number of IIarper's Mag
azine, the literary editor says of this
book:
"The late Eles Sargent has left be-
hind him i gracious and pleasant men,
DRY i'll the last work that resulted from
his industry as 4 man of letters. For
several years past he had been engaged
in the preparation of Harper's Cyclope-
dia OF British, and American Poetry, and
he had completed and just given tile
final touches to it, when the inevitable
summons came. As its title indicates,
the work is al anthology of British and
American poetry. Extending from the
time of Chaucer to the present day, it
contains more or less numerous exam
pies of the verse of nearly all, during the
i've and u half centuries that have clap
sed since the dawn Of English litera-
ture, who have earned the distinction
of being called poets. = How enot-
nous this task really was may he con-
ceived when we say that the volume
comprises, in 058 double-column royal
octave pages, over two thousand exam
pies. selected from the works OF nearly
nine hundred authors y
b. III. Stoddard, himself eminent as a
poet and critic. thus speaks Of the work
in the New York Critic: :-,f>.
How has Mr.. Sargent performed his
task? He has shown the knowledge
and the skill that might have been ex-
pected from 80 we'll read and so accom-.
pl1shed writer; he has shown a cath0.
licity as we'll as u sureness Of taste; and
he has avoided the two great tempta.
tions which always lie in wait for the
latest editor-the determinats on to rep.
resent his authors by poems that were
never before quoted. and the determin.
atiOn to represent his subject by auth
ors that were never before quoted-a
hazardous undertaking, in which sue.
cess. except q measurable success, is al.
most impossible. He has proceeded on
what seems to me to be the true princi.
pie OF arrangement, that of chronology;
he has made his selections as full as he
could consistently with the multitude
to he selected from, neither rejecting
old ones because they were old, nor &C.
cepting new ones because they were
new, but earnestly aiming In both cases
TO represent the great body OF. British
their best only; and he las felt the de