17 FEBRUARY 1894, Page 26

Latin and Greek Verse. By the Rev. Thomas Saunders Evans,

M.A. Edited, with Memoir, by the Rev. Joseph Waite, M.A. (Cambridge University Press.)—Dr. Evans, who was Professor of Greek at Durham from 1862 up to the time of his death, was one of the scholars who leave little fruit of their work behind them. They hand on the torch of knowledge burning with a brighter flame, but the tangible results of their learning are scanty. Mr. Evans's name was little known beyond the circle of friends and pupils (at Rugby and Durham). And he left little behind him, except some contributions to the Sabrinae Corolla, and this volume of selections from his stock of "copies." He was educated at Shrewsbury, where he was known as a precociously good scholar, and at Cambridge (where the unhappy regulation that then re- quired a mathematical qualification shut him out from honours and rewards). A Mastership at Rugby followed, and then, by the judicious choice of Bishop Baring, the Greek Professorship at Durham. Dr. Waite's memoir is highly interesting, exhibit- ing, as it does, the kindly, devout, absorbed scholar. In his youth, T. S. Evans was of the " elegant " type,—a ready and skilful versifier. This faculty he never lost ; but he acquired also a very keen and accurate knowledge of the niceties of language. This knowledge resulted in contributions to the of the New Testament. Probably he did more in this way than he ever got credit for. But of this no one could be more careless than he was. He was one of the most unselfish of men, one of the most disinterested lovers of know- ledge for its own sake. Some of the lighter qualities of the man are amusingly described in the memoir. One was his extraordinary readiness in Greek and Latin renderings. Asked to translate "forty oxen feeding like one," he replied without a pause, " quad- raginta boves pascentes unius luster," not forgetting to apologise for the false quantity in " quadraginta." Asked again to trans- late into an iambic, "Well, old Stick-in-the-mud, how's your conk ?" he replied with equal readiness, ly 13004*; ornpuxTi, we lxus xecpa, ;