25 NOVEMBER 1882, Page 21

The Odyssey of Homer, by H. Hayman, D,D., Vol. III.

(D, Nutt)) concludes a work on which its author has been many years engaged, and completes a task which must have involved considerable diffi- culty, at all events in the collection of manuscripts, during the time which has elapsed since his removal from Rugby to Lancashire. At Rugby, Dr. Hayman was in a central position, and was able to carry on his researches into texts without much difficulty, being in reach of both London and Oxford. To this enforced absence from libraries he alludes with regret, and not without a slight tinge of asperity, in his prefaoe to the volume before us ; and the motto on the title-page, if we gather its drift correctly, points wittily in the same direction. However, now that the work has appeared in its completeness, all University men, whether personally friends or foes of the "Ex-Head Master of Rugby School," will feel grateful to Dr. Hayman for a largely-corrected text, and for a collection of foot-notes which it is a slight praise to call"scholarly." His parallel passages from ancient and modern writers, including Milton and Sir Walter Scott, are happily chosen; and the notes fully explain not only the Greek text, but also the action of the poem. It would be doing but scanty justice to Dr. Hayman, if we were not to say that his preface really exhausts all that can be said or written about the A47101, ItoiSoi, and 2terireiot, and proves almost to conviction that the art of writing was known in ancient Hellas at a far earlier date than is generally supposed and admitted. We may be pardoned for adding one or two very brief criticisms on individual passages of the text. On p. 282, we should, for ourselves, prefer to have read 'Mein/es for vAloves, in the be- ginning of lino 247; and we cannot help supposing that vies d'IPTIF, on page 185, line 4, is a misprint for vies 4vepyhs, and €rcipeww, in the last line on page 187, should be printed k•rdpoies. The printing of the book, however, which has been done at Leipzig, on the whole, is such as to reflect great credit on the typographer.