6 MARCH 1897, Page 26

Greek Lyric Poets. Selected and Illustrated by Francis Brook. (David

Nutt.)—Mr. Brook has put together here frag- ments, with now and then a complete poem, of the Greek lyrists. There are between thirty and forty of them, with some popular songs and anonymous fragments. Tyrtteus heads the list with two fragments and a spirited marching song. The elegies attributed to him are excluded by the plan of the book, not to mention their probably later date. Archilochus follows with twenty-nine fragments, and, after some less-known names, comes Alcman with thirty-two pieces, Sappho with seventy-one, Alcaeus with thirty-eight, and Simonides with forty-six (his epigrams and epitaphs not being included). Mr. Brook's translations are well executed. Here is his rendering of Alcman's 0f e' Fri rapeen Sal laeXtycipues 114ep6ybcovot, "No longer, 0 soft-voiced, sweetly-speaking maidens, can my limbs bear me. Would, ah ! would that I were the halcyon that flies with its mates over the surface of the wave, keeping an untroubled breast, the sea-blue bird of spring."