3 NOVEMBER 1888, Page 43

Lin, Book xxii. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, and Maps, by

the Rev. Launcelot Downing Dowdall, M.A. (Deighton, Bell, and Co.)—Mr. Dowdall has produced a very useful book. Any one editing this portion of Livy is somewhat at a disadvantage, owing to the excellent edition by Mr. Capes. From some points of view, Mr. Dowdall's book does not compare unfavourably with that of his predecessor. His notes are fuller and more numerous. Also he devotes more space to explaining the difficulties of the text. His introduction and historical notes are, as might be expected, not so good. By-the-way, why has he been so chary in the matter of maps ? There is only one, and that is not large enough to give the movements of Hannibal described in the opening pages of the book. In chap. ii., 4, when commenting on the words monis ad talia, some remark on the omission of the gerundive might have been added. Sese immergunt (chap. vi., 6) @ " plunge in," appears to be quite wrong. To begin with, it is rather putting the cart before the horse. Again, if Mr. Dowdall will take the trouble to refer again to the passage of Polybius from which he has quoted to support his view, he will find that that author care- fully distinguishes between the doings of those who could swim and those who could not. Tar eepaadr—Inrepscrxov—evidently refers to such as could not, and who, when all hope of safety had passed, drowned themselves. " Stores " does not strike us as being a very good translation of inetrumenta, especially when we have commeatibus in the preceding sentence. But, as a whole, the notes are careful and scholarly.