12 MARCH 1831, Page 19

DUNBAR and BARKER'S Greek and English Dictionary would have been

an invaluable work ten years ago : at present it must take its chance with many rivals of similar merit. Its chief excel.. lence consists in the copiousness of its collection of words ; in which respect it will be useful and acceptable to the general reader of Greek. But it, as well as the other Greek and English Lexicons we have seen (and the fault is common to the Greek and Latin ones also), wants a philosophical classification of the meanings of words : literal and metaphorical explanations are mixed up to• gether: the gradations are not traced, and the student is left tO pick up the meaning of the word that suits him, as he best may. In this Dictionary, many of the explanations are loaded with a cumbrous display of learning, useless to the student, and incon- sistent with the object of the publication. Much of this learning is conveyed in Latin, and would find a fitter place in STEPHENS. We may refer to many words in Kappa,—such as KaOrsepere, KteAtzgow, &c.; and nserm, a botanical word, has a very long explanation in which there is not one word of English. This stuff seems to have been foisted into the work by way of giving it a distinguishing character: after all, however, it is but an enlarged translation of SCHREPELIUS ; but which, as we have said, ten years ago would have been invaluable.