The Treatment of Nature in the Poetry of the Roman
Republic. By Katharine Allen. (Madison, Wisconsin. 50c.)—This mono- graph is one of the results of the excellent system which makes creative power rather than the faculty of repeating enstruction the qualification for a degree, the system of the dissertation rather than of the examination. Miss Allen goes carefully through all the remains of pre-Augustan Roman poetry, from Livius Andronicns to Lucretius and Catullus, and brings together the language of illustration and simile drawn from Nature, and of direct description of natural objects. She does not tell us, indeed, much that is new, but she treats her subject with a completeness which leaves nothing to be desired. As to the arrangement we feel somewhat doubtful. It might have been better to have classi- fied great natural objects and ranged the extracts under them. As the book stands it is something of a maze But it is a most praise. worthy effort, and shows much taste and feeling, as well as learn- ing. The proportion of names in the bibliography is interesting. Sixteen are German, five English, three American, and one Swiss.
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