The London Mercury.
In his article on "Modern Classical Scholarship" Mr. Gilbert Norwood invites on every page the most violent dis- agreement; and, as he is urging that the classics should be read and taught not as repositories of dead grammar but as lively and interesting works of art, he will doubtless feel that, by rousing criticism and discussion, he is furthering his object. His thesis is unexceptionable, but his discriminations are curious. He describes Plautus as a blockhead, and sets very little value upon Lysias—verdicts which will outrage all who have taken these two writers particularly and per- sonally to their hearts. When he remarks that the "beautiful translations" of Professor Murray have met with no hostility, he is quite definitely wrong ; they have been the subjepts of the bitterest controversy. Mr. Stanley P. Williams writes with respect and enthusiasm of Leslie Stephen, and Mr. Robert Keable's essay on the life of Gauguin is very good reading. Mr. Arthur Symons makes of Sarah Bernhardt a romantic and tragic figure. "She had the evil eyes of a Thessalian witch ; she could enchant with her slow, subtle and cruel spells men's souls out of their bodies." The soberest article is an analysis of the art of the novel by Mr. Dyneley Hussey. He seems to us happier in his general principles than in his illustrations ; but it is a useful and closely-reasoned essay. This number of the Mercury is the most interesting that has reached us for several months.
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