18 NOVEMBER 1911, Page 10

The Sunset of the Heroes. By W. M. L. Hutchinson.

(J. M. Dent and Co. 5s. net.)—The " heroes " are the chiefs who fought in the Trojan War. A prologue tells the story as far as the death of Hector ; then we have various scenes which we owe to the Cyclic poets, the continuators of Homer. We have the coming of the Amazons—is there any authority for putting Penthesilea on horseback?—the deaths of Memnon and Achilles, the contest for the arms of Achilles, the story of Philoctetes, the taking of Troy, the adventures of Telmer, Helen in Egypt, with the strange tale of the Trojan phantom, and the slaying of Agamemnon. All these tales are well told. We would rather not have had the late legend of the invulnerability of Achilles. Homer knew nothing of this, for he tells how Asteropteus wounded him on the wrist.