What is more, these Reviewers give themselves, as a rule, plenty of room, and supply abundant extracts—things of the first importance in the case of books, then as a rule to be found only in the old editions, and in many cases by no means common now. The scope is wide. The first volume gives, _inter alia_, articles on Chamberlayne (one for _Pharonnida_ and one for _Love’s Victory_), on Crashaw and Dryden, on Rymer and Dennis and Heinsius, on Ben Jonson and Cyrano de Bergerac, on the _Urn Burial_, and on such mere curiosities as _The Voyage of the Wandering Knight_. The papers throughout on Drama, from the Mysteries onward, and including separate articles on the great Elizabethan minors, were, till Pearson’s reprints thirty years ago, the most accessible source of information on their subjects, and are still specially notable; as are also the constituents of another interesting series on Spanish Literature. The _Arcadia_ balances Butler’s _Remains_ in vol. ii. Vaughan and Defoe, _Imitations of Hudibras_, and that luckless dramatist and mad but true poet, Lee,[547] have their places in the Third, where also some one (though he came a little too early to know the _Chansons de gestes_, and so did not put “things of Charlemagne” in their right order) has an interesting article on the Italian compilation _La Spagna_. I should like to continue this sampling throughout the sixteen volumes, but space commands only a note on the rest in detail.[548] Nor are they afraid of more general discussion. In the above-mentioned article on John Dennis there is a long passage which I do not remember to have seen anywhere extracted, dealing in a singularly temperate and reasonable fashion with the “off-with-his-head” style of criticism put in fashion by the _Edinburgh_; and others will be easily found. But they do not as a rule lay themselves out much for “preceptive” criticism. It is the _other_ new style of intelligent and well-willing interpretation to which they incline, and they carry it out with extraordinary ability and success. To supply those who may not have time, opportunity, or perhaps even inclination to read more or less out-of-the way originals with some intelligible and enjoyable knowledge of them at second-hand; to prepare, initiate, and guide those who are able and willing to undertake such reading; to supply those who have actually gone through it with estimates and judgments for comparison and appreciation—these may be said to be their three objects. Some people may, of course, think them trivial objects or unimportant; to me, I confess, they seem to be objects extremely well worth attaining, and here very well attained. The papers in the _Retrospective Review_, be it remembered, anticipated Sainte-Beuve himself (much more such later English and American practitioners as Mr Arnold, who was not born, and Mr Lowell, who was but a yearling when it first appeared) in the production of the full