2 NOVEMBER 1889, Page 45

SCHOOL-Booxs.—Livy, Book xxii. Edited by Marcus S. Dims- dale, M.A.

(Cambridge University Press.)—Mr. Dimsdale begins with a useful introduction, in which he summarises the available information about the authors (ten in number, it would seem) whom Livy employed in the writing of his third decade. Livy's obligations to Polybius are estimated with especial care. A second introduction deals with "the style and grammar of Livy," the second section of which (as grammar) strikes us as being espe- cially valuable. In an appendix on "The Battle of Trasimene," Livy's account is preferred to Polybius's, who, indeed, with all his valuable qualities as a historian, wanted, as Mr. Dimadale remarks, "the geographical eye." The annotation seems to supply what is wanted for the understanding of the text.— Selections from Pliny's Letters, edited by H. R. Heatley (Riving- tons), is one of a series (Mr. Dymes's "Selections from Lucretius" were reviewed some little time ago in these columns) intended to introduce the young scholar to the style of various authors, an admirable object with which we have the fullest sym- pathy. An unusual proportion of the letters selected in this volume are from the tenth book, the Pliny-Trajan corre- spondence (more than 50 out of the total of 142). Much may be said for this choice, for these letters are an absolutely unique authority on many matters of interest in the Roman Empire. The annotation is possibly a little scanty, but we have no other fault to find with it.—It is not necessary to do more than to say that Mr. D. B. Monro has completed his school edition of the Iliad in Homer : Iliad, riii.-azriv. (Clarendon Press.) There is no one in England to whom students of Homer owe more than they do to Mr. Monro.—The Odyssey of Homer, Book x. By G. M. Edwards, M.A. (Cambridge University Press.)—We have to note here a useful introduction on " Homeric Forms." A pre- liminary knowledge of this subject is absolutely essential if Homer is to be read with any profit to the student's scholarship"—Latin Verse Lyric Composition. By J. H. Lupton, M.A. (Macmillan )- Mr. Lupton gives us an introduction on lyrical verse in general, on the principal metres employed by Horace, on the Horatian usage of various words, and other matters. The exercises are seventy in number, and each is followed by a " retranslation" and by " notes."—Key to Exercises in Latin Verse. By the Rev. George Preston, M.A. (Macmillan.)—Shakespeare's Richard III. Edited by W. H. Payne Smith. (Rivingtons.)—Elementary Commercial Geography. By Hugh Robert Mill, D.Sc. (Cambridge University Press.)—The Thopur Euclid. By Edward W. Langley, M.A., and W. S. Phillips, M.A. (Rivingtons.)—" Revised in accord- mice with the reports of the Cambridge Board of Mathematical Studies and the Oxford Board of the Faculty of Natural Science." —Elementary Synthetic Geometry. By N. F. Dupuis, M.A. (Macmillan.)