It is really very difficult to know what to say to Mr. Maynard Leonard, editor of _The Dog in British Poetry_ (London: David Nutt). His case is something the same as Archdeacon Farrar's. The critic who desires amendment in the Archdeacon's prose, and suggests that something might be done by a study of Butler or Hume or Cobbett or Newman, is met with the cheerful retort, "But I have studied these writers, and admire them even more than you do." The position is impregnable; and the Archdeacon is only asserting that two and two make four when he goes on to confess that, "with the best will in the world to profit by the criticisms of his books, he has never profited in the least by any of them." Now, Mr. Leonard has at least this much in common with Archdeacon Farrar, that before him criticism must sit down with folded hands. In the lightness of his heart he accepts every fresh argument against such and such a course as an added reason for following it:-- "While this collection of poems was being made," he tells us, "a well-known author and critic took occasion to gently ridicule (_sic_) anthologies and anthologists. He suggested, as if the force of foolishness could no further go, that the next anthology would deal with dogs." "Undismayed by this," to use his own words, Mr. Leonard proceeded to prove it. Now it is obvious that no man can set a term to literary activity if it depend on the Briton's notorious unwillingness to recognize that he is beaten. I might dare, for instance, a Scotsman to compile an anthology on "The Eel in British Poetry"; but of what avail is it to challenge an indomitable race? I am sorry Mr. Leonard has not given the name of this critic; but have a notion it must be Mr. Andrew Lang, though I am sure he is innocent of the split infinitive quoted above. It really ought to be Mr. Lang, if only for the humor of the means by which Mr. Leonard proposes to silence him. "I am confident," says he, "that the voice of the great dog-loving public in this country would drown that of the critic in question." Mr. Leonard's metaphors, you see, like the dyer's hand, are subdued to what they work in. But is not the picture delightful? Mr. Lang, the gentle of speech; who, with his master Walton, "studies to be quiet"; who tells us in his very latest verse "I've maistly had my fill O' this world's din"-- --Mr. Lang set down in the midst of a really representative dog show, say at Birmingham or the Crystal Palace, and there howled down! His _blandi susurri_ drowned in the combined clamor of mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, and "the great dog-loving public in this country"!