SHORTER NOTICE
Tfus volume completes the version of the Old Testament prepared by Mgr. Knox at the request of the Archbishop of Westminster. It exhibits all the characteristics already noted as appearing in Vol. L A few remarks, however, may be added to what was said in a review of the earlier section. A large part of the new work is concerned with poetry, and this, unfortunately, is not readily distin- guishable from the prose portions. Mgr. Knox has failed to reproduce the beauty and rhythm even of the Vulgate, to say nothing of the Hebrew text. He has given an alternative version of the Psalter, based on the Latin text of the Pontifical Institute. Both suffer badly in comparison with the Westminster Version. One point, however, may be noted ; we have here an attempt, and, on the whole, a successful attempt, to indicate the character of the " alphabetic " poems found in the Psalms and else- where. On this we would congratulate the translator, for it is far from being an easy task. In general we may say again that judge- ments on style are apt to be subjective, and some of us hope that the type of language used in this translation will not find a permanent home in English literature. But at least it has freshness, and, to use a phrase of Oliver Wendell Holmes, it " depolarises " the familiar English of earlier renderings.
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