The Adelphoe of Terence : the Phorntio of Terence. By
W. Wagner, Ph.D. (Deighton, Bell, and Co., Cambridge).—These are two more of the handy reprints from Dr. Wagner's edition which we noticed some weeks ago. They form part of the series of Cambridge Texts with Notes.—P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos II., III. By E. W. Howson, M.A.. (Macmillan.)—It is needless to say that Mr. How- son's volume contains, as it could hardly fail to do, much accurate information. But something more than this and its elegant little map is needed to give it a raison d'être, and we fail to see that it has any particular merits of its own. It is difficult to imagine the conditions under which a boy will be benefited by such casual crumbs as "passive subjunctive" (whatever that may be) and "concessive petitio obligua ;" or by such oracles as " tulis. sent is not the oblique form of the future perfect. The tense, not the mood, is emphatic." The note "are, i.e., ad swum," can hardly fail to giro the impression that the Romans had really, as most schoolboys suspect who have discovered "It clamor caelo," a secret longing, which found vent only in verse, to use the dative in both the senses which, as they foresaw by second sight, belong to the preposition "to." At II., 599, we arc told that " ni resisterent tulissent would be the form of hypothesis which we should naturally expect, but metrical necessities required the form as it is." Young verse-makers, far from "grieving that our greatest are so small," will, doubtless, take comfort from the assurance that Virgil shared their difficulties, but, at the risk of being challenged by Mr. Howson to make resisterent and tulissent, as they express it," come in," we protest that we see no reason why the poet should be accused of an ineffectual desire to say something quite different to what he has chosen to say. At III., 43, is the wonderful note "jaculis, a dative equivalent to in jacuia, has sprung up into a growth of javelins.' "But the strangest result of the haste which presides over the composition of such trifles as this is the note on IL, 664-5, which we quote in full :—" The com- mentators do not throw much light on this difficult passage. Coning. ton's note is misty. Quod me oripis is the subject of the sentence. Hoc is either the predicate, in which case it = propter hoc, and ut depends upon it. Tratsl. : Was your rescue of me for this namely, in order that,' &e.; or (and this we think more likely), hoc is to be taken with Quod me eripis. Trans].: Was this your rescue of me in order that,' F.r.c." We fail to see either the difficulty or the mist, though Conington's note is rather suggestive than elaborate. The construction of " hoc " might have been illustrated, if necessary, by" hoc illud, germane, fait," in IV., 675 ; but the reference to Horace should have guarded Mr. Howson from explaining the tense of " erat " as referring "to the time when the promise was made." The use of the imperfect to express some past expectation which has now been ratified or disappointed is very fully explained by Mr. Wickham (on Hor., 06. 1, 37), and may be readily illustrated in Greek, as from Ear., Ion 185.
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