CURRENT LITERATURE.
20schylus : Agamemnon. With Introduction and Notes. By A. Sidgwick, M.A. (The Clarendon Press, Oxford.)—There have been many editions of the Agamemnon, but none whioh, on the whole, we should prefer for general use to this. In the first place, we get in a very convenient shape all that we want to know about the text. Mr. Sidgwick exhibits at the foot of the page the chief varieties of read- ing in the manuscripts, and thus gives the young scholar an oppor- tunity of seeing what criticism has done for the text, and of dis- tinguishing between the various classes of corrections and conjec- tures, the obvious and accepted, the probable or plausible, and the doubtful. Between contending suggestions, Mr. Sidgwick exercises his choice with good judgment. One interesting novelty which he introduces, at the suggestion of a friend, some of our readers will be glad to see. It is, 'Erh E2 eepplr of iv race 13aAre ; " Shall I not drop a warm tear on the ground P" for the manuscript Oefeavous 40144, which is very doubtfully translated, " I, thus passionate, shall cast myself upon the earth." It is true that the only authority for wrci-ya is Cif TaTES, in Apollonius Rhodius, and Mr. Sidgwick would probably have crossed the word in an exercise. On the other hand, it requires less alteration (only 7 for x and v for 1.1.) than 07 wydni. In the matter of interpreta- tion, the help that Mr. Sidgwick supplies is all that could be desired, We may note the famous passage about the lost Helen in 406-420 as a model in this respect. Not less to be commended are the editor's thorough appreciation of the beauty of the poetry, and the wel chosen words in which he points it out to the student. The notes on grammar and instructions are as lucid and pointed as we should ex- pect them to be, from all that we have seen of Mr. Sidgwick's former work.
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