20 OCTOBER 1900, Page 13

THE AMEER OF AFGHANISTAN.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.'] SIR,—I wonder whether the " Agamemnon " of lEschylus was one of the books which were read to the Atneer Of Afghanistan as he lay in bed courting sleep ? In the interesting extracts from his autobiography which have just been published in the Monthly Review we read (p. 37) :—"I am still alive, to the sorrow of those who seem so anxious to

put an end to me, as they circulate false reports about my death once a week. I did not think that any man died so many times as they have killed me in their imagination." Compare with this passage Audi. Ag. lines 857 foil., of which I give a free translation :--" If he (Agamemnon) had received as many wounds as reported, no network were as full of holes as he, or had he died as runny times as stories told, like another three-bodied Geryon he might have boasted a triple cloak of earth, if in each form he had endured a single death."