Exercises in idiomatic ha lion, through Literal Translation from the
English. By Maria Francesca Rossetti. Aneddoti Italiana (Key to the above Exercises), One Hundred Italian Anecdotes from 11 Compagno Passeggio Campestre. Selected by the Same. (London and Edinburgh : Williams and Norgate.)—The diction of these exercises is adapted (by the aid of occasional interpolations or notes) to suggest the idiomatic structure of the Italian into which they should be retranslated, neglect- ing only some general rules of collocation which pupils will have ac- quired from the simplest grammars. The most interesting peculiarities of both languages form the subject of brief etymological comments ; and the introductory chapters, in which there is much careful and steady analysis, treats of those difficulties in the use of the verb which spring chiefly from the defectiveness of our own auxiliaries (can, ought, .&c.), in which the same form may serve as a past tense, a conditional mood, or otherwise. Our students must have been better circumstanced in these respects when Chaucer was yet able to write .1 should have mowen for ich butte mogen, aurei potuto. The hundred anecdotes will be Sound pointed and entertaining, though by no means trivial or unedify- ing. The character of Miss Rossetti's work is everywhere unaffected, shrewd, and thorough—we mean as an individual attempt, for this method of translation can only be perfected by long usage. Her notes will be especially advantageous to learners who have already some .acquaintance with the German language.
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