ScnooL-Boolte.—A Primer of Greek Accidence. By Evelyn Abbott, M.A., and
E. D. Mansfield, B.A. (Rivingtons.) Dr. Percival, of Clifton College, recommends this volume, in a preface which states forcibly its distinguishing merits. It is calculated to economise time, by the lucidity and order of its arrangement, and it is based on sound philological principles. Both considerations are of the utmost import- ance. In tho old days, when a boy had the whole morning, and possi- bly the whole afternoon toe, for his Latin and Greek, it was well enough to put " Wordsworth's Grammar" into his hand. If he mastered it—and he had plenty of time for mastering it, if the " stuff " was in him—he had made no small step towards being a scholar. Now mathematics, modern languages, English literature, and science make clamorous calls on his time, and he must have his work put very clearly before him, in the matter both of order and of principle, if he is to make his way through it. The primer before us fulfils its object, as far as we can judge, admirably. No method can make Greek accidence anything but a great difficulty to the learner, but clear arrangement and the bringing-out of a meaning in intricacies that seem at first sight arbitrary will do a great deal, and this Messrs. Abbott and Mansfield have done. We can heartily recommend it to teachers, that unhappy race who are being killed not now by the crambe repetita which they had once to swallow, but by the farrago which they have painfully to cram down the throats of their scholars. —Xenophon's Anabasis of Cyrus, Books I., II., by R. W. Taylor, M.A. (Rivingtons); and from the same author and publisher, Xenophon's Anabasis, Books III. and IV. We have, common to the two volumes, a general introduction and a sketch of the "Rules of Greek Syntax ;" besides this, each has an appropriate historical sketch and notes. These notes strike us as very good ; they are especially full in dealing with the very interesting questions of geography, &c., that present them- selves in connection with the famous marah. The Anabasis, though somewhat tedious, it must be owned, in its earlier part, may be made one of the most interesting of class-books, and success shows this is one of the many merits of Mr. Taylor's edition. He deals also satisfactorily with the difficulties of the text, though looking, perhaps, rather more to the requirements of somewhat advanced learners than of the beginners who are commonly put into Xenophon. But the help for beginners must be left to the teacher except in books which deal only with a very small portion of an author. —The Four Gospels in Greek : with a Lexicon. By the Rev. John T. White, D.D. (Longmans.) Dr. White, following the practice which he has adopted in his "Grammar-School Texts," gives us, not notes, but a lexicon. The plan is, in some respects, a good one. A number of questions which it is hardly possible to pass over in notes, but with which learners should not be troubled, are thus put by ; the real diffi- culties of the text are explained in the lexicon, but not explained without some trouble having been taken on the part of the reader. This is quite as it should be.—In the series of "Grammar-School Texts," we have St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: with a Vocabulary. By John T. White, D.D. (Longmans.) Hero an introduction supplies us with what is absolutely necessary in reading this epistle,—an analysis. —Sophoclis Trachinim : with Notes and Introduction. By Alfred Prater, M.A. (Deighton and Bell ; Bell and Sons.) Mr. Prater deals fully, and as far as we can judge, successfully, with the obscuri- ties of this difficult play. He takes the text of Professor CampbelL In exegesis he has independent opinions, though of course he is indebted, as an editor of Sophocles cannot but be, to the many scholars, as Hermann, Wander, Linwood, Paley, and Campbell, who have preceded him in this work. His judgment seems generally to be sound. There can be no doubt, for instance, that hole right in correcting Linwood's rendering of awrin• psi;wer Aystp.',.swy Vaqd 1XTi1141 (said of Hercules and Iphitus), "he slew him when unaided by man," to "he slew him and no one else by craft," meaning that all other of his foes had been slain by force,-11,pcor.. His remarks on the " sententious irony" of isoi za; to,tappri TOI 4u,taival vi ;in; IT, where Deianira finds a trouble in not being able to find out anything about Iola—all unknowing of the graver trouble which is to come from her—and on the epithet E..1y4tot, applied to the captives' home, are specimens taken almost at random, but indi- cating the sympathetic and careful labour which Mr. Pretor has bestowed on his work. The students of this generation are happy in the way in which the resources of scholarship are now accommodated to their use.
Previous page
