SettooL-BooKs.—M. Tulli Orationes in L. Catitinans IV. Edited by J.
C. Nicol, MA. (Cambridge 'University Press. 2s. 6d.)—Mr. Nicol follows up his useful edition of the Pro Loge Manilla" with another volume which is, in some sense, a sequel to it. The con- spiracy of Catiline was the natural result of the policy which had culminated in the Manilian proposal. Pompey was the "lion's cub" which had been reared in the city, but which many people now desired to get rid of. Mr. Nicol puts the main points of the story clearly enough in his introduction. He might, we think, have spoken more decidedly. To read the history of Rome, from the Gracchi downwards, and then talk of the execution of the conspirators as "a dreadful deed," as Mommsen does, is too absurd. The annotation is sufficiently full, possibly too full. No difficulty should be left untouched, but we do not care to see schoolboys fur- nished with ready-made renderings such as reconciliatione concordiae "by the re-establishment of harmony "; post hominum memoriam, "within the memory of man" ; quibus pro tantis rebus, "in return for these great achievements"; condi et collocari," to be treasured up in your hearts." All these are from one page. The meaning is plain enough in each case, and the learner should be left to find out the best equivalent. If ho fails, the teacher must supply it; anyhow, it is not the business of the commentator. The order of the words in quibus pro tantis rebus might have been noted.—We are inclined to make the same criticism on Histoire d'un Con.writ de 1813, edited by Arthur Reed Ropes, M.A. (same publishers, 3s.) We allow that it is very difficult to know where the line should be drawn. French, anyhow, when written in the Erckmann- Chatrian style, has many colloquial and idiomatic terms which puzzle a learner. This will be found a very useful edition. It has the advantage, too, of giving one of the very best works of the famous coliaborateurs.—Wo have received The Mother Tongue, Vol. III., edited by J. II. Gardiner, G. L. Kittredge, and Sorrell L. Arnold (Ginn and Co., 48. (ld.),—it treats of the "Elements of English Composition " ; also English Words and Sentences, Books I. and II., for the junior and inter- mediate divisions (W. Blackwood and Sons, 6d. and 8d.)—In "Black's Historical Series" (A. and C. Black, 2s.) we have History in Biography, Vol. II., edited by A. D. Greenwood, taking in the period 1305-14S5, and giving Lives of Robert Bruce, the Black Prince, the Earl of Warwick, &c., with sketches of peasant life drawn from such sources as are available; and English History from Original Sources, by F. H. Durham (2s. 6d.), in which, after an excellent fashion lately set, the reader is brought face to face with narratives as near as possible to the events related, with letters, speeches, the ipsissinta verba, if possible, of the actors themselves.—In another line of teaching we have Commercial German, by Gustav Hein and Michel Becker, Part I. (J. Murray, 3s. 6d.); and French Commercial Correspondence, by Charles Glauser, Ph.D., arranged and adapted by W. Mansfield Poole, M.A. (same publisher, 4s. 6d.)—Further Notes on the Teaching of English Reading. By Nellie Dale. (George Philip and Son. 3s. net.)
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