Whether we agreed or not with the late Dr. Verrall,
we read his books with exhilaration. Yet his theories left most of us slightly dissatisfied ; he almost persuaded us that the plays of Euripides and Aeschylus either must be explained after his fashion or were dramatically incompetent. His explanations, brilliant though they were, did not seem perfectly to fit w:th what we knew of the Greek spirit ; and we felt uneasily that we might be compelled to accept the alternative view. Mr. Hoemle now comes forward with his own comments on two cruces. He takes the difficulties that Dr. Verrall showed to be so great in the Agamemnon and the Choephoroe and offers explanations which certainly seem to demand less effort of belief than Dr: Verrall's. Briefly, he argues that Agamemnon intentionally delayed the beacon-signals from Troy, and he makes more plausible the recognition of Orestes from a lock of hair left on his father's tomb by reminding us that such a votive offering was the duty only of Orestes.
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