FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[105]The Sixth was never heard of after the massacre of its officers; a dozen men were enough for that work, and there are those still living who believe that the per-centage of traitors in its ranks was small. At Benares, too, the mess-guard held the mess-premises against all comers till the station was quiet, and then through sheer terror marched off without plunder.

[105]The Sixth was never heard of after the massacre of its officers; a dozen men were enough for that work, and there are those still living who believe that the per-centage of traitors in its ranks was small. At Benares, too, the mess-guard held the mess-premises against all comers till the station was quiet, and then through sheer terror marched off without plunder.

(Under the Direction of theRev. PrebendaryJ. Davies, M.A.)

One of the most useful volumes for classical students which has seen the light this year is the solid collection ofSpecimens of Roman Literature, illustrative of Roman Thought and Style, edited by Messrs. Cruttwell and Banton, of Bradfield College, and published by C. Griffin and Co. Mr. Cruttwell is creditably known for his compendious History of Roman Literature, and it is a happy afterthought of himself and his composition-master to supplement that manual by the present collection of extracts from Latin prose and poetry, designed as models for composition, samples to be learnt by rote, and exercises in unseen translation. The work contains above 900 passages, illustrative (1) of Roman thought in the fields of religion, philosophy, art, and letters; and (2) of Roman style, from the earliest date to the times of the Antonines. Edited of necessity, by reason of their bulk, sans note or comment, these selections are availably grouped in a preliminary synopsis, happily headed with descriptive and apposite English titles, and further adapted to English reference by an index of authors classed in their periods, and another of subjects and titles of passages. It is hard to conceive a completer or handier repertory of specimens of Latin thought and style, and it is but fair to add that no small proportion of the contents is comparatively novel and unhackneyed, a boon at the same time to the exhausted composition tutor and to the acquisition-seeking, wideawake pupil. For example, among descriptions selected in illustration of style, we come upon passages from Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, preserved in Cicero’s De Divinatione and De Naturâ Deorum, followed by epigrams of those elder poets, Valerius Œdituus, Porcius Licinus, and Quintus Lutatius Catulus, embalmed in the antiquarian pages of Aulus Gellius. The literature of Roman agriculture is represented (§§ 31-4) by specimens of Varro de Re Rusticâ, directing how to choose the best oxen for draught, or slaves for farm work; how to make a duck-pond, or prepare a snail-bed; as well as of Columella and, of course, Virgil. Pliny’s natural history is taxed largely for characteristic contributions: the letters of his nephew, as well as of Seneca and Cicero, for epistolary style, as well as for philosophy, religious views, and the like. Lucretius and Catullus are excellently represented: as in the field of Roman drama are Plautus and Terence, with fragments of elder playwrights. Nor is scant justice done to the purely Roman field of satire, as is seen in apt extracts from Horace, Juvenal, and Persius, whilst a happy selection is made ofproducible specimens of Petronius. Even Roman parody is not overlooked, nor yet an insight into Roman gastronomy. In fact, we know not where to turn for defaults in the presence of such assiduous and various compilations. Here and there may be detected careless printers’ errors, such asTarforTer. (the abbreviation of Terence); and it would have been neater to head the hortatory or suasory orations, illustrated in pp. 567-8, §§ 73-5, with an English title, rather than to describe each in mingled and maimed speech as “a suasoria” (i.e., “suasoria oratio.”) But the work is so calculated to be useful to scholars and editors that we must trust its value will be enhanced in future editions by the most careful revision.

A volume of somewhat kindred use and purpose, though of additional value as suggestive of a standard of translation indisputably sound and high, is the collection ofTranslations, by Professor Jebb, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Currey, of Trinity, Cambridge, published by Deighton, Bell, & Co., Cambridge, and George Bell & Sons, London, just a year ago. Its usefulness is enhanced by a fourfold applicability to the wants of translators into Greek and Latin, and out of those languages into English, whether in prose or poetry. The samples are, of course, limited considerably by the area of the field they cover, but they will be admitted to be amply sufficient for models and patterns, and no tiro, or even advanced student, can fail to be benefited by the variety, excellent choice, scholarly handling, brief but seasonable annotation, and general accommodation to student-use, of the selections which form the four divisions of this practical manual. The rule of “Ne quid nimis” has been sufficiently respected to forbid tedious reiteration of types of the same style, so that in Greek verse into English only three examples of Theocritus occur, one a sweet piece of idyllic description, a second illustrative of the mimes of Sophron, a third breathing the Alexandrian tone of poetic stimulus to the halting liberality of the would-be literary Ptolemies. The proportion of extracts from Homer and the dramatists is scarcely larger, and rather guides the reader to form a criterion of style for himself than helps him to be armed beforehand for passages which may be set in this or that examination. In translation the canon of accuracy and fidelity is tendered in preference to that of liveliness and effect, though it cannot be said that Messrs. Jebb and Jackson’s translations from Plautus and Terence, or those of Jebb and Currey from Martial, Juvenal, and Ausonius, are deficient in the life and spirit suggested by the originals. As much may be said without controversy for the prose models in either language; nor is it to be lightly regarded that the aim of the editors has been to help classical students to train themselves in preparation for examination. Not to be prolix in notice of a volume which may be referred to again and again in our examination of texts and school-books to follow in our chronicle, it may be admissible to quote in Latin and English some six lines of Professor Jebb’s translation from the Phormio (pp. 140-1) as a type of the neatness and spirit of the average of these translations. Phormio is explaining how, with all his ebullitions, he has never been indicted for assault:—

“Quia non rete accipitri tenditur neque miluo,Qui male faciunt nobis: illis qui nihil faciunt tenditur;Quia enim in illis fructus est, in illis opera luditur.Aliis aliunde est periclum unde aliquid abradi potest:Mihi sciunt nihil esse. Dices, ducent damnatum domum:Alere nolunt hominem edacem: et sapiunt, meâ quidem sententia,Pro maleficio si beneficium summum nolunt reddere.”—Phorm., act. ii. 2.

“Because we do not spread nets for hawks and kites that do us harm; the net is spread for the harmless birds. The fact is, pigeons may be plucked: hawks and kites mock our pains. Various dangers beset people who can be pilfered—I am known to have nothing. You will say, ‘They will get a writ ofhabeas corpus.’ They would rather not keep a large eater: and I certainly think they are right to decline requiting a bad turn with a signal favour.”

From a summary notice of these two volumes of wider range and scope, it is an easy leap to such noteworthy classical translations and texts of the year or season as lie on our table for review. Of the former we note with satisfaction a new and very readable version ofThe Letters of the Younger Pliny, literally translated by John Delaware Lewis, M.A. (London: Trubner & Co., 1879), whose version of Juvenal’s Satires some years back was accurate, lively, and well-achieved. In approaching another author of the silver age, well deserving of a more modern English transcript thanthose of Melmoth and Lord Orrery, Mr. Lewis has been minded to present this pleasantest of gossips, and most cultured of letter-writers, in a guise as little as possible encumbered with notes or excursions, and in such wise that the volume is admirably adapted for the library table, whether the object be comparison with the Latin text, or refreshment of the memory, anent this or that sentiment of the many-sided and voluminous man of law and letters. Under the conviction that enough has been done to present Pliny himself to his readers in the volumes by Church and Brodribb (in the Ancient Classics), and by Pritchard and Bernard, as well as the notices of life and letters by W. S. Teuffel and English bibliographers, Mr. Lewis has confined himself to the briefest of introductions, and been content to bestow most pains on apt and parallel English counterparts to the expressions and idioms of the Latin. Thus the task undertaken has been made to assume an easy, unaffected form, at the same time that it is calculated to stand close examination by the criterion of the Latin text. A good specimen both of the gossiping author and his latest translator might be cited from Book II. 6 to Avitus, in which is described the triple-graded dinner given by a shabby, purse-proud host (α) to himself and his intimates, (β) to his lesser friends, (γ) to his freedmen at the same board, but of fare graduated according to degree. Pliny tells his correspondent that he demurred to this procedure to his next neighbour at table, and propounded his own practice on this wise: “I invite people to dine, not to be invidiously ticketed, and I treat as my entire equals in all respects those whom I have already made my equals by inviting them at my table.” And this equality, for the time being, he extended to his freedmen, on the sensible point of view that they were then his guests, not his freedmen. In the same book (letter 15) occurs a letter of Pliny to Valerianus, brief enough for quotation, and yet expressing with lively brevity more than one home truth for those who realize Horace’s sketch, “O si angulus iste proximus accedat.” “How,” he asks, “does your old Marsian property treat you? And your new purchase? Are you pleased with the estate now that it is your own? Indeed, nothing is so agreeable when you have once got it, as it was when you longed to have it. As for me, the farms which I inherited from my mother treat me but so-so: yet they delight me as coming from my mother; and besides, long endurance has hardened me: constant growling comes to this at last, that one is ashamed to growl.” Next but one to this letter comes one of those charming descriptions which are,par excellence, Pliny’schefs d’œuvre, minutely detailing the features and attractions of his villas. These constitute to the young student so manyloci classici, by no means to be overlooked in preparation for facing the test-paper of a scholarship examination, and it is sound counsel to candidates for such to avail themselves of a translation like Mr. Lewis’s for general purposes, taking such letters as the one alluded to (II. xvii.) for special study and comparison with its original. Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Lewis adds pertinent and sensible notelets in cases of difficulty; but it is only fair to sayà proposof the, as he would seem to imply in his preface, long-since shelved translation of Melmoth, that in Bohn’s Classical Library (George Bell & Sons) will be found a revision and correction ofThe Letters of Caius Plinius Cœcilius Secundus, as translated by Melmoth, annotated and otherwise accommodated to modern reading by the Rev. F. C. T. Bosanquet, B.A., of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, which will be found in all respects excellently suited for the need of the current reader. Whilst here and there the style of Melmoth strikes us as forgetting itself for a brief space, where the modern editor has felt bound to interpose a more literal rendering, and in such cases it is simpler to refer to the uniform translation of Lewis, it is certainly a real boon to have the notes of Bosanquet’s Melmoth’s Pliny to consult, whether they represent the explanatory and illustrative labour of Melmoth, and his literary or antiquarian contemporaries, or the careful supplementary illustrations of his accommodator to modern eyes. So much explanation is due to one of the best recent volumes of Bohn’s Classical Series (1878).

The feeling is more mixed with which we touch upon Mr. T. Hart Davies’sTranslation of Catullus into English Verse(London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879), the author of which is a quondam Oxonian in the Indian Civil Service. Fully persuaded that Catullus is very untranslatable, and that the subtle charm of his dainty versification evaporates, it is evidence alike of Mr. Hart Davies’s courage and culture that, afar from classical libraries, he has recreated his mind and tastes with the reproduction of one of the most genuine classical poets; given us anew the touching songs to Lesbia, and the unequalled nuptial songs (lxi. and lxii.); and rendered with more or lesssuccess the pictorial epic, in petto, of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and the pathetic allusions to an early-lost brother in the poem to Hortalus. He deserves, too, the praise of having read carefully the recent literature of the subject, and guaged with creditable acuteness and discrimination the lucubrations of Professor R. Ellis, the criticisms of Mr. Munro, and the critical essays of Schwabe, Heyse, and Couat. He hesitates, however, it would seem, to accept Munro’s well-sustained rehabilitation of Cæsar and Mamurra (à proposof Poem xxix. on Cæsar), and in two or three passages seems to us to err in point of prolixity, which is as foreign as can be conceived to the style of his original, as well as, in one or two places, in misconception of his sense. In either aspect, he cannot be regarded as competing (which indeed he does not aspire to do) with Theodore Martin: but we cannot honestly say that we regard his version of the Atys as an improvement in readableness on that of one of the ablest of critics, but most puzzling and hopeless of verse-translators, Professor Robinson Ellis. Indeed, it is a question whether he has imported any improvement into the rendering of his Galliambics by adopting the Tennysonian rather than the Catullian rhythm and measure. Mr. Hart Davies is mostly happy in his shorter versions. The invitation to Cæcilius is bright and brisk (p. 33): there is a touching sadness in the lines to Cornificius (p. 35). The stanzas to the poet’s self on the “Coming of Spring” (p. 43) breathe much of the tiptoe of expectation and love of adventure infused into the original lines. And as a neat sample of the translator’s muse may be quoted the transcript of the “Lines to Sirmio,” adequately executed, and endorsed with some of the original pathos and picturesqueness—

“Sirmio, fairest of all isles that be,Or all peninsulas that ocean laves,Whether around them roll the mighty sea,Or a lake’s placid waves.Thee with what joy, what rapture do I view,Returned from Thynia and Bithynia’s plain!I scarce can credit that the bliss is trueThee to behold again.Oh! what more blessed is than labours past!In weary wanderings abroad we roam,Then spent with toil we come again at last,Seeking our rest at home.This for our toils the sole reward is found,Hail, lovely Sirmio, and thou Lydian mere!And now, my home, let all thy laughter sound,Now is thy master here.”

Mr. Hart Davies’s temporary exile has obviously the solace of scholarship.

If a wide divergence from the beaten track into fresh fields and pastures new be a merit, as it must be to jaded schoolmasters, if not to school-boys, some praise should be accorded to Mr. Heitland, a Fellow and Lecturer of St. John’s, Cambridge, and his coadjutor, Mr. Raven, for having furnished the Pitt Press Series with so good an edition of that part of theHistory of Quintus Curtius, which relates to the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great. The subject, author, and hero are to modern readers novel and unhackneyed: and there is that suspicion of imperfect knowledge attaching to all three which sets the mind on the qui vive to acquire what is knowable about them. For such an undertaking no better guides could be needed. An introduction primes the student with the needful information (α) as to Curtius and his book; (β) as to Alexander’s career; while Appendix D (187-9) supplements from Mr. Talboy Wheeler’s “History of India from the Earliest Ages” the general and current information as to the plan of his Indian campaign. Anent the date and authorship of Curtius’s history, it is shown to be the work of Q. Curtius Rufus, a rhetorician of the reign of Claudius, and referable to the silver age of Latin literature. His transparent imitation of Livy has suggested the not improbable supposition that he may have been even that historian’s pupil, nor is it an impertinent criticism of the editors’ that in common with that master Curtius seems to ignore the “high aims and farsightedness which give its grandeur to Alexander’s character.” The string of notable usages in Curtius’s style, given in pp. 14-15, exhibits more than one palpable Livianism; and the use of poetical language bespeaks his attentive study of Virgil. Tiros will be comforted by hearing that “if Curtius is less pleasant to read than Livy, he is also less difficult.” The criticisms of the editors on the grounds of his historical value at the revival period are interestingand perspicuous, and the special interest of the particular portion of history adopted as a specimen of the author needs no apology in a country where the reigning sovereign has the collateral title of Empress of India. Six chapters of the eighth Book bring the reader through the country west of the Indus to the bank of that river, its passage, and the ensuing battle on the eastern bank, with the defeat of the army of Porus; whilst the ninth Book embraces Alexander’s advance through the Punjab, his operations in descending the Jhelam and Chenab, his descent of the Indus, and exploration of its mouth, with an account also of the homeward march; and the least that can be said of Messrs. Heitland and Raven’s editorial work, whether critical or explanatory, is, that no difficulty of text is overlooked or imperfectly handled, no discrepancy, as comparing Curtius with parallel authorities, ignored. A test-passage, wherein to prove this statement, may be taken in the fourteenth chapter of the eighth Book, the battle between Alexander and Porus, which is described with unflagging care and zeal from first to last, the situations and details being compared, and, where possible, reconciled with Arrian, the poetical phrases characteristic of Curtius pointed out and illustrated, and the unusual words,e.g., copidas(“choppers” like a Goorka knife, theκοπὶςfrom the same root asκόπτω), clearly though succinctly explained. On Alexander’s order to Cœnus in §§ 15 of the battle chapter, “ipse dextrum move et turbatis signa infer” (advance the right wing, &c.), an excellent note, for which Mr. Heitland undertakes the sole responsibility, accredits him, in our judgment, as a most sound historical commentator, by the exhaustiveness wherewith he reconciles Arrian and Curtius’s view of Alexander’s position and movements, and those of Cœnus. The former with the main body took the Indian horse in flank, before they could change their front, and enabled Cœnus to fall on what had been their front but was now their disordered flank: and as to the difficulty in the way of this explanation, that according to Arrian the war-chariots were in front of the Indian horse, it is justly deemed easier to conceive Cœnus eluding these clumsy adversaries, than Alexander expecting him to see from the Macedonian left the right moment for his own charge, and then wheel round the whole Indian army, and execute his orders opportunely. With the same lucidity is the whole narrative commented on: and every geographical, historical, or military difficulty investigated, with a commendable eye both to ancient and modern references and authorities. Equally interesting, too, will be found the elucidations of questions of style, such as in viii. §§ 10, where “ignialitasepulchra” reveals a certainly post-Augustan but doubtfully Ciceronian form; or as in viii. 14 §§ 41 the use of “malum” (plague take you) borrowed interjectionally from the comic poets and, as is shown in the notes ad loc., from Cicero De Off. ii. §§ 53. Students, however, must search this volume minutely to understand aright the helps it affords to their just estimate of Quintus Curtius Rufus as a rhetorical moralist and historian, worthy of perusal in the wake of Livy and of Seneca. Maps, indices, and list of names, are given, which will be found of service.

For our next topic of criticism recourse must be had to Ciceronian Latin, and to the famous speech of Rome’s greatest orator, which is generally reckoned the first of his public and political orations. Called in the MSS. the speech “De imperio Gnæi Pompeii” “apud Quirites” it is better known as the orationpro lege Maniliâ, and because there is no compendious school edition of this speech, apart from others of the same orator in the hands of English school-boys, Professor Wilkins, of Owens College, has judiciously undertaken to prepare an edition of it, with the cognizance, sanction, and assistance of Karl Halm, of Munich, and his smaller edition for English students. The English professor’s name is a sufficient earnest of his work’s thoroughness, and though it might be matter of doubt whether his historical introduction of over forty pages is not unnecessarily circumstantial (we note that in Chambers’ preface to the same oration in the “Ciceronis Selectæ Orationes,” 1849, of their Educational Course, it is limited to two), it must be admitted that a complete preliminary summary has the result of shortening afterwork by admitting of copious references to it in the notes in place of explanation. Such is certainly the case with Mr. Wilkins’s present task (M. Tullii Ciceronis De Imperio Gnœi Pompeii Oratio ad Quirites, by A. S. Wilkins, M.A., Professor of Latin in the Owens College, Manchester. London: Macmillan & Co., 1879), where the introduction traces consecutively the career and campaigns and varying fortunes of Mithridates, during over twenty years, through his struggles with Lucullus, and his easy resistance to Acilius Glabrio, down to the period when the tribune Manilius proposed a Bill to commit the conduct and consummation of the war to the then favourite of fortune, Pompey theGreat. Against this Bill were arrayed the Moderate Republicans, and the talents of the orator Hortensius, whilst on behalf of it spoke Julius Cæsar, either with an eye to a future precedent in his own case, or perhaps to create a reaction. It is probable, however, that the masterly eloquence of Cicero in defence of the Bill, and his exhaustive demonstration of Pompey’s fitness for the supreme command against Mithridates, were the causes of the general and irresistible acceptance of the Manilian proposal. As Mr. Wilkins notes at the close of his introduction, this speech contains the best example from antiquity of the regular arrangement of a speech of the deliberate class, while the third section of the argument presents a model of demonstrative oratory scarcely paralleled in the days of the Republic, except in the funeral orations. As has been already remarked, the fulness of Professor Wilkins’s introduction tends to disencumber his commentary and its notes of digressive and indirect matter; and the result is highly favourable to the due mastery of the sense and gist of the oration by the patient student. Every passage has its critical difficulties explained; every uncommon construction or use of a word is noted; every antithesis is pointed out by the observant editor. In the first class may be instanced the use in c. ii. ofvectigalibusin the masculine gender fortributaries, which has its parallel in § 45; in the third the contrast in c. iii., between “In Asiæ luce h.e,” “in the foreground of Asia,”luxbeing used of what is present to the eyes of all, and open to extensive commerce, as opposed to “Ponti latebris,” as the hiding-place of Mithridates is termed just before. In the same chapter there is an antithesis, as is well shown in the description of past generals having carried offinsignia victoriæ, non victoriam, “only triumphs, not a victory;” and as a sample of other notes dealing with fiscal duties and such like, we may notice those in c. vi., on “ubertate agrorum” “magnitudine pastionis,” and the sources of revenue farmed by the “publicani.” In the same passagescripturais the “rent for pasturage,” andcustodiis(§ 16) = “coastguard posts, to prevent vessel unloading unless at the emporia where there were custom-houses.” Forpublicanis omissis, a despaired-of reading in c. vii. § 18, the editor adopts the conjecturepublicanorum bonisorfortunis amissis; and indeed seldom fails in the likeliest cure for a corrupt word or text. Incidentally he is rich in rules for orthography, as where on “tot milibus” he cites Lachmann (Lucret. i. 313) for the use of the singlelwhere a longiis followed by a short one in the next syllable; nor does he fail to note any memorable change of construction,e.g., where in c. xiii. in the sentence, “Hiemisenim nonavaritiæperfagium majores nostri in sociorum atque amicorum tectis esse voluerunt,” we have a change from the objective to the subjective genitive, “a refugefromthe winter, notforavarice.” But enough has been said to signify the merit of this handbook; and we must deal more briefly with such other Latin volumes as are still on our list.

Among these perhaps Mr. Reid’s Lælius (M. Tullii Ciceronis Lælius de Amicitia, by James S. Reid, M.L.: Cambridge University Press, 1879) is the most notable, an edition based mainly on Seyffert’s elaborate edition, yet evidently strengthened by seasonable comparison with the best German editions. Mr. Reid disowns acquaintance with any English edition of the Lælius, having only heard of that of Mr. Arthur Sidgwick, when his own was far advanced through the press. The object and purpose of the edition is twofold, viz. (1) elucidation of the subject-matter and comparison of the editor’s own conclusions touching it with those of other editing scholars; and (2) a thorough elucidation of the Latinity of the dialogue, a task to which all who are cognizant of his edition of Cicero’s speeches for Archias and for Balbus will admit his eminent fitness. A fourfold introduction summarises the salient points of Cicero, as a writer of philosophy; the scope of this treatise on “Friendship:” the structure, personages, and other circumstances of the dialogue, and a quasi-dramatic analysis of the same. It will be found that Cicero, whilst having no sympathy with the Epicurean philosophy of his day, sided mainly with the Peripatetics, though inclining in a few points of detail to the Stoics. An instructive disquisition on the sources of the dialogue opens out various clues to inquiring students, and suggests particularly minuter testing of the question how far Cicero directly imitated Plato’s Lysis, which is perhaps more probable than that he used for it the Nicomachean Ethics, although, in form, beyond a doubt the Lælius is more Aristotelian than Platonic. The “mitis sapientia Læli” in the dialogue stands out in contrast with the genial learning of Mucius Scævola and the severer cultivation of Gaius Fannius. An interesting passage in the dialogue is that in which Lælius states a question relating to friendship, in which he was to some extent at issue with Scipio, viz., the difficulty of friendship enduring a whole lifetime. Scipio held the negative view,and Lælius demurred to it, and in c. x., xi., &c., the occurrences which tend to break off friendship are enumerated. In the tenth chapter are to be found two or three very apt elucidations of the text, such as that on the construction of “contentione condicionis,” and the sense of condicio (not “conditio”) in § 34, but one note (16) on “optimis quibusque” stands out as a sample of exhaustive criticism. The argument of Lælius is that there is no greater curse in friendships than, in the run of men, the desire of money; in the best, the desire of honour and glory: “in optimis quibusque honoris certamen et gloria.” Let us see how Mr. Reid examines this last clause, which he compares with the sentiment, “optimus quisque gloria maxime ducitur,” in the oration for Archias. The best authors, it is shown, use only theneuterplural ofquisque, and that with a superlative; Cic. Fam. vii. 33, where we have “literas longissimas quasque,” being exceptional, because literæ, “an epistle,” has no singular. Mr. Reid instances, indeed, from the De Officiis ii. 75, “Leges et proximæ quæque duriores,” but only to propose an emendation to a senseless reading, viz., “Leges, et proxima quæque”—i.e., “laws, and harsher each of them than its predecessor.” In the present case, he adds, “quibusque” may be used forἑκάστοιςin the sense of “each set of people,” or the plural may be due merely to assimilation with “plerisque.” In a note on the difficult passage, p. 41, “et minime tum quidem Gaius frater, nunc idem acerrimus,” Mr. Reid, rightly, it should seem, adopts the interpretation of Madvig, Opusc., 2, 281, thatminimequalifiesacerto be supplied from “acerrimus.” This sample of interpretational tact must suffice from a copious inventory; and with reference to helpful elucidation of matter and illustration of proper names, quotations, adagia, and what not, it need only be said that it is in this edition always sound and seasonable.

For the same employers, the Syndics of the Pitt Press, Mr. A. G. Peskett, M.A., of Magdalen College, has carefully edited the fourth and fifth books of Cæsar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War,Gai Juli Cæsaris De Bello Gallico Commentariorum, IV. V.(Cambridge University Press, 1879), with a helpful commentary derived from study of German and English editors, and speculations on the topographical, geographical, and astronomical problems involved in Cæsar’s account. These books, it will be remembered, containinter aliathe description of Cæsar’s Bridge over the Rhine, his preparations for invading Britain, his first somewhat abortive attempts, and then, after a winter in Italy and Illyricum, his maturer arrangements, and landing—not without damage to his fleet—on the shore of Britain. The second of these campaigns embraces the narrative of the treachery of Ambiorix and the utter defeat of the Romans, v. 36-7. In the fourth book, one of the most interesting problems is the construction of Cæsar’s Rhine Bridge, c. 17; whether Cæsar’s method of strengthening the four bearing piles with their transverse beams was (as Kraner and Heller practically agree) by four fibulæ at each junction of the beam with the piles (eight in all), or, as Cohausen believes, by two fibulæ at each end, one serving instead of cross-piece c, in fig. 1, for the beam to rest upon. Napoleon’s view of the fibulaæ, given in fig. 4, p. 63, is far less tenable, and the most reasonable view is that of Heller. In c. 36, Book V., note, we have good examples of the actual words of Ambiorix to Titurius, as they may be gathered from theoratio obliquain which the historian casts them. In c. 37, it should seem that the readinglapsihas less likelihood, though better authority, than “elapsi,” and Napoleon’s identification of the site of the battle is shown to be accurate, in a note discussing the topography of Tongres, the Geer, and the village of Lowaige. From a cursory examination of this edition of two interesting books of Cæsar’s Gallic War we should be disposed to congratulate the young student of intelligence, into whose hands a volume at once so helpful and so lucid may fall. There remains on our list only one Latin volume, the third part of Professor Mayor’s Juvenal for Schools, containing Satires X. and XI. But this, as well as a batch of recent editions of Greek plays and Greek authors, such as Xenophon, Lucian, &c., must be postponed until another time.

(Under the Direction ofMatthew Browne.)

In referring to two more of Messrs. Macmillan and Co.’sEnglish Men of Letterswe shall reproduce, reckless of the charge of “damnable iteration,” the charge we have made before. Here isBurke, by Mr. John Morley, andHume, by Professor Huxley, each volume containing over two hundred close pages; and most admirable volumes they are. But let us turn again to the prospectus and note its language: “These Short Books are addressed to the general public with a view both of stirring and satisfying an interest in literature and its great topics in the minds of those who have to run as they read.” This language is both wide and careful; the old metaphor may be read more or less loosely, of course; and it may be said that those who care much for Burke and Hume must be provided for in the series, and that the writers who deal with them have treated their topics as pleasantly as may be. We do not deny this, and the little volumes are substantial additions to the literature of the day. But they are not for readers who have to run with their books in their hand.

Mr. John Morley’s estimate of Burke is known to us all, and it is what might be expected. As a philosophical politician, and as a speculative writer in general, Burke, of course, pleases Mr. Morley by the positive tendencies of his mind. We are pleased to see that he assigns its due rank to the too often underrated Inquiry about the Sublime and Beautiful. But Mr. Morley has perhaps the fault which Sterne told his friend the Count belonged especially to the French; he is “too serious.” Of course, Burke is a great man, and one must not cut jokes in a memoir of him—at least one must not if one can’t. But it is quite certain Sydney Smith would have done it; and there are many ways in which a page may be lit up. Well worth notice, as an amusing touch, was that passage in the Inquiry in which Burke speaks deprecatingly of Bunyan, because he did not write like Virgil, and though the present work “is biographical rather than critical,” we miss a number of amusing anecdotes. This may be the result of literary fastidiousness on Mr. Morley’s part, but, if so, we submit that the fastidiousness is carried too far. There is a little story that some one (we forget the name at the moment) who had lost largely by investing in some West Indian property, alleged that he had been induced to invest by Burke’s glowing descriptions of the country, and that Burke replied, “Ods boddikins! must one swear to the truth of a song?”—or in very similar language. Now this is really illustrative. We can by no means agree with Mr. Morley that Burke was free from the vicious tendencies of the rhetorician, not to say the rhetorical Celt. He had the Celtic leaning towards forlorn hopes, and the Celtic want of truthfulness. Of course, the Dr. Richard Price, who is so contemptuously treated in the “Reflections,” was a much smaller man than Burke, but he had more love of truth and more capacity of adhering to principle in his little finger than Burke had in his whole nature. Mr. John Morley does his friendly and ingeniously reticent best for him; but students who reject the “positive” method (except as an auxiliary or a check) will persist in thinking that the painful tangles of the great man’s life, and the blind alleys and other faults of his writings, were the result of his deficiency on the side of truthfulness. It will be doing anything but injustice to Burke, Mr. Morley, or the reader, if we call particular attention to p. 173 and so on to p. 177 inclusive. They give a bird’s-eye view of the most important part of the subject; they contain instructive comparisons between Burke, Sir Thomas More, and Turgot: and they seem to us to contain large proof in small compass of what Mr. Morley will of course not admit—namely, Burke’s want of love for the truth, and his incapacity for abstract speculation.

As a reasoned account of the life and writings of the subject of the book, Professor Huxley’sHumeis one of the very best of the series—we were going to pronounce it the best, but remembered in good time that we had not seen them all. In any case it is excellent. It does not seem to us that Hume’s “Description of the Will” is grammatically open to the criticism on p. 181. But comment like this would be useless unless we gave the reader an opportunity of judging. This is Hume’s “description of the Will,” as quoted by Professor Huxley:—

“Of all the immediate effects of pain and pleasure there is none more remarkable than thewill; and though, properly speaking, it be not comprehended among the passions, yet as the full understanding of its nature and properties is necessary to the explanation of them, we shall here make it the subject of our inquiry. I desire it may be observed that,by thewill, I mean nothing butthe internal impression we feel and are conscious of, when we knowingly give rise to any new motion of our body, or new perception of our mind. This impression, like the preceding ones of pride and humility, love and hatred, it is impossible to define, and needless to describe any further.”—(ii. p. 150.)

And this is Professor Huxley’s comment:—

“This description of a volition may be criticized on various grounds. More especially does it seem defective in restricting the term “will” to that feeling which arises when we act, or appear to act, as causes: for one may will to strike, without striking; or to think of something which we have forgotten.”

But is not this met by the last six of the words which Professor Huxley has italicised? They are certainly very wide, and one might ask, in addition, what word of absolute “restriction” is employed by Hume in this passage? He indicates what he means by the word “Will,” by saying that it is what we are conscious of upon certain occasions, and this gives a clue to the quality of the sensation; but it was obvious, and did not need saying, that the quality of the sensation might remain, though its complete outcome were baulked.

In presenting and criticizing Hume’s views upon such topics as Theism, Immortality and Miracles, Necessary Truth, &c., Professor Huxley is, so far as we have discovered, both accurate and candid. It is only necessary to suggest that the reader should keep his eyes open—for there is really not one new word to be written upon these matters.

It is not often that you are told what a man died of. You are put off with some such phrase as “a painful malady,” or a “family complaint.” Yet, it is often just what we desire to know, because the illness from which a man suffers stands in direct relation to his power of work and his capacity of endurance. Consumption, except in its later stage, is not usually painful. Nor does it necessarily make work difficult. The same may be said of maladies which come on paroxysmally, and leave those blessed intervals of ease of which Paley, himself a sufferer, writes with such unaccustomed tenderness. In theGibbonof this series, Mr. Morison slurred over the very curious, perhaps unexampled fact, that Gibbon had long concealed a bad hernia and had done nothing for it. It finally killed him, but that with his amazing corpulence he could live a long time with a serious rupture, and keep his general health and his placidity, is very interesting. Professor Huxley tells us point-blank what Hume died of, and it is quite as well for biographers to be specific in such matters. We may just inquire, in passing, where the Professor got his “solidcertainty of waking bliss”? It seems pedantic to notice every trifle of this sort, but if small errors in quotation were, so to speak, nipped in the bud, many logomachics would be saved. How much discussion, in pulpits and out of them, has been wasted upon the supposition that Pope wrote that “an honest man’s thenoblestwork of God.” Whereas Pope wrote “noble,” and it was Burns, in the “Cotter’s Saturday Night,” who started the error. Now “solid” is as good sense as “sober,” but the latter is what suits the verse best, and it is what Milton made Comus say.

The “run” upon Dante continues. Here isDante: Six Sermons, by Philip H. Wicksteed, M.A. (C. Kegan Paul & Co.) “In allowing,” says Mr. Wicksteed—

“the publication of this little volume, my only thought is to let it take its chance with other fugitive productions of the pulpit that appeal to the press as a means of widening the possible area rather than extending the period over which the preacher’s voice may extend; and my only justification is the hope that it may here and there reach hands to which no more adequate treatment of the subject was likely to find its way.”

The sermons were delivered first at Little Portland Street Chapel, where Mr. Wicksteed succeeded Dr. Martineau, and afterwards at the Free Christian Church at Croydon, where the Rev. Rodolph R. Suffield formerly preached, but where the Rev. E. M. Geldart is now (we believe) the minister. The book contains only about 160 pages, and gives a very readable and complete account both of Dante and his poetry. The style is that of the pulpit, iterative, florid, and full of amplifications; but that was natural. It is a serious matter, however, that the author keeps up his strain of eulogy from end to end at a pitch which has an almostfalsettosound with it. It seems hardly fair to leave unnoticed the charges of artificiality and worse which have been abundantly made against Dante and his poetry, especially as this book is intended for popular use; and it is a pity that Mr. Wicksteed should go out of his way to settle difficult questions in this off-hand way:—

“It is often held and taught, that a strong and definite didactic purpose must inevitably be fatal to the highest forms of art, must clip the wings of poetic imagination, distort the symmetry of poetic sympathy, and substitute hard and angular contrasts for the melting grace of those curved lines of beauty which pass one into the other. Had Dante never lived, I know not where we should turn for the decisive refutation of this thought; but in Dante it is the very combination said to be impossible that inspires and enthrals us. A perfect artist guided in the exercise of his art by an unflagging intensity of moral purpose; a prophet, submitting his inspirations”—

and so forth, in the same strained and insistent key. But no wise critic has ever said that “a strong and definite didactic purpose must inevitably be fatal to the highest forms of art.” What is maintained onthatside of the debate is that the “purpose” must not be permitted to shape the poem; that the poem itself must be moulded upon lines of beauty and not of “moral purpose”—though the “moral purpose” may be immanent in the work. But who is bound to take Mr. Wicksteed’s word for the statement that Dante’s great poem is not the very strongest confirmation in all literature of the truth that acontrollingandinterferingmoral purpose injures a poem, Milton’s “Paradise Lost” being the next strongest?

A well-known, and also imperfectly known, “nook in the Apennines” is the Republic of San Marino, about which there is a good deal of information inA Freak of Freedom; or, The Republic of San Marino, by J. Theodore Bent (Longman, Green & Co.) It appears to be partly the record of a visit paid by the author to the spot in 1877, and is illustrated by fifteen woodcuts from the author’s own drawings, to say nothing of a map. Mr. Bent was presented with the freedom of the Republic, and we do not know that any one, except another citizen of it, or some near neighbour, could criticize his little book to much advantage. But we trust he will permit us to remark that he might have made his work more amusing and instructive. There is a good deal about the place in Addison, and this is referred to (among other interesting matters) in an article in Knight’s “Penny Magazine” for May 31st, 1834. But, though we have not time to make references, we have a strong impression that there are many descriptions, new and old, of San Marino, which it would have been refreshing to quote. We know, however, of no work which gives so much information as Mr. Bent’s.

It might be the subject of a very plausible doubt whether French novels of a high order ought to be translated into English, since those who are really capable of understanding and enjoying them will be certain to understand French, and since, moreover, the finest qualities of the writing must disappear in the process of translation. Then, with regard to French novels of a much lower class, they are not worth the trouble of turning into English; are more likely in themselves to do harm than good; and their reproduction in our language cannot tend to encourage “native talent.” We have before us, from Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington,The Cat and Battledore, and other Tales, by Honoré de Balzac, translated into English by Philip Kent, B.A. (3 vols.) Perhaps it was not a bad idea to give the merely English reader some chance of appreciating the extraordinary qualities of the author of “Le Père Goriot,” “Le Peau de Chagrin,” and “La Recherche de l’Absolu” (neither of which is, the general reader may be told, in this collection): but Balzac is not a writer with a soul in him, and the experiment need not be carried any further. Those who know nothing of Balzac, and who read novels simply for excitement, will be glad of these three volumes, and the glimpse they give of an unique writer; but to studious readers Balzac’s novels have an interest which is mainly psychological. The preface (here translated) to the “Comédie Humaine” is a strange presumptuous medley, which raises, like all the author’s most characteristic works, the question of perfect sanity—a question which Mr. Leslie Stephen once opened very acutely, and dismissed too curtly. To have read through a story of Balzac’s is to have passed through one of those wonderfully vivid dreams which leave you puzzled and lost at the moment of awaking. It seems to be generally admitted that his writings do not tend to make his readers “immoral” in the usual sense of the adjective, but there is something ineffably droll in his patronage of “Christianity, especially Catholic Christianity,” and that defence of his own writings which the reader may amuse himself by studying in the preface. He is not only conservative, he is monarchical, and objects to representative Government, if it “hands us over to the rule of the masses.” But what chiefly concerns those who buy novels, or send for them to the libraries, is the quality of the stories, and they may depend upon getting a full measure of excitement, with some instruction, out of “La Maison du Chat qui pelote” and the companion stories.

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