14 JANUARY 1893, Page 22

The Hell of Dante Alighicri. Edited, with Translation and Notes,

by Arthur John Butler. (Macmillan and Co.)—Mr. Butler prints the Italian text (for the collation of which he owns himself considerably indebted to Dr. Moore) with his translation on the same pages, and subjoins foot-notes (here, again, making a liberal acknowledgment to Cary—" it is astonishing," he writes, "how constantly it occurs that when one has hunted up, Or fortuitously come across, some passages to illustrate Dante rather out of the run of ordinary literature, one finds that Cary has got it already "). At the end of the volume is a glossary which will be found most useful to the student. It is for the student, it must be understood, that the volume (a continuation of the work begun some years ago by the publication of "The Purgatory ") is intended. Mr. Butler does not mean it as a rival translation to Carlyle's, which "remains," he writes, "the standard prose translation." Any one with a fair acquaintance with Latin will find the book, with its convenient arrangement and its serviceable notes, most useful for the study of Italian through Dante.