(_Under the Direction of the_ Rev. Prebendary J. DAVIES, M.A.)
One of the most useful volumes for classical students which has seen the
light this year is the solid collection of _Specimens 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 OEdituus, 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 of producible 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 as _Tar_ for _Ter_. (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 of _Translations_, 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 of _habeas 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 of _The 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 than those 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 (=a=) to himself and his intimates, (=b=) to
his lesser friends, (=g=) 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's _chefs
d'oeuvre_, minutely detailing the features and attractions of his
villas. These constitute to the young student so many _loci 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 say _à propos_ of 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 of _The Letters of Caius Plinius Coecilius 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's
_Translation 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 less success 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
propos_ of 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 true
Thee 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 the _History 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 (=a=) as to Curtius and his book; (=b=) 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 interesting
and 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, the =kopis= from the same root as =koptô=), clearly
though succinctly explained. On Alexander's order to Coenus 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 Coenus. The former with the main body took the
Indian horse in flank, before they could change their front, and enabled
Coenus 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 Coenus 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 "igni _alita_ sepulchra" 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 oration _pro 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 Gnoei 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
the Great. 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. of _vectigalibus_ in the masculine gender for
_tributaries_, 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,"
_lux_ being 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 off _insignia 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 passage _scriptura_ is the "rent for
pasturage," and _custodiis_ (§ 16) = "coastguard posts, to prevent
vessel unloading unless at the emporia where there were custom-houses."
For _publicanis omissis_, a despaired-of reading in c. vii. § 18, the
editor adopts the conjecture _publicanorum bonis_ or _fortunis 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 single
_l_ where a long _i_ is 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, "_Hiemis_ enim non _avaritiæ_
perfagium majores nostri in sociorum atque amicorum tectis esse
voluerunt," we have a change from the objective to the subjective
genitive, "a refuge _from_ the winter, not _for_ avarice." 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 the _neuter_ plural of _quisque_, 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 for =hekastois= in 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, that _minime_ qualifies _acer_
to 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, contain _inter alia_ the 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 the _oratio obliqua_ in which the historian casts them. In
c. 37, it should seem that the reading _lapsi_ has 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.
III.--ESSAYS, NOVELS, POETRY, &c.
(_Under the Direction of_ MATTHEW BROWNE.)
In referring to two more of Messrs. Macmillan and Co.'s _English Men of
Letters_ we shall reproduce, reckless of the charge of "damnable
iteration," the charge we have made before. Here is _Burke_, by Mr. John
Morley, and _Hume_, 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's _Hume_ is 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 the _will_; 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 the _will_, I mean
nothing but _the 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.)