Guide to the Choice of Classical Books. By Joseph B.
Mayor, M.A. (Bell and Sons.)—Mr. J. B. Mayor (whom our readers will distin- guish from Mr. John E. B. Mayor, the learned editor of Jnvenal) has given in this volume a most valuable assistance to all stu- dents of the classics, and especially to all persons who have to guide and direct the classical studies of others. Busy schoolmasters go on teaching from obsolete text-books, and put their pupils at an enormous disadvantage, from the vast difficulty which they encounter in getting information about the newer lights in scholarship and philology. A great amount of classical learning, not generally very profound, but still sound and practically useful, has been brought to bear on the apparatus of classical education during the last twenty years. There are few authors who have not been well edited, and some have been well translated. We speak, of course, of authors included in the course of school and university reading. For others there is no demand in England. Mr. Mayor, who has the advantage of practical experience as Professor of Classical Literature at King's College, gives most valuable help, by supplying teachers with sound judgments on a mass of literature on which they have not the opportunity to form a judgment for themselves. His
little volume contains a select list of "Editions and Translations of Classical Authors," works which Mr. Mayor can recommend being marked with a star, and a very brief notice of their character being appended (the price, we should say, is very properly added); and a second part enumerates "Helps to the Study of Ancient Authors," such as Grammars, Lexicons, Exercises for Composition, Works on History and Antiquities, &c. No one who consults this volume must neglect to study carefully an admirable preface, in which Mr. Mayor ably discusses some vexed questions in classical study, the use of translations among them.
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