Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology. By J. W. Macke.%
LL.D. (Longmans and Co. 2s. and Is- net.)—In this neat little Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology. By J. W. Macke.% LL.D. (Longmans and Co. 2s. and Is- net.)—In this neat little
volume Professor Macklin has printed the text of the selection which he published some little time ago. (It was reviewed in the Spectator of November 17th, 1906, p. 779.) The epigrams number between five and six hundred, and cover a range of more than a thousand years. Simonides was born in 556, and twelve of his epigrams are given. Ten of them are epitaphs, those on the Spartans at Thermopylae and the Spartan and Athenian dead at Plataea being among them. Then there is Agathias, who was one of the anthologists. His date is about the middle of the sixth century after Christ, and the art of epigram-writing was carried on long after him. Perhaps the epitaph section is the best in the book; but it is not easy to choose where there is so much beauty and pathos. What an exquisite touch is this on a dead watch- dog!_
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How strange that the cultured Chesterfield should say. "1 recom- mend the Greek epigrams to your supreme contempt." He was copying the French taste. So soupe is is Grecgue became a proverb for something insipid.
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