With a fine quality of paper, generous broad margins and
a .delicately curious fount of type, a fitting dress is furnished for Dr. E. J. Martin's Twenty-one Mediaeval Latin Poems (Scholartis Press, 16s.). The collection consists partly of religious and partly of secular poems and they are an inherit- ance from the Middle Ages, all but four of various dates which are put in to show that "the Latin speech has never lost its fascination for the artist." Neat translations, suffi- ciently close to the Latin, by Dr. Martin himself and by other hands, accompany each poem, and to each are attached metrical notes and any others necessary for the under- standing of the poems. Not that they need much, for the characteristic of these engaging little verses is their simple charm. Miss Helen Waddell has already in her Wandering Scholars given us a fuller excursus on the whole theme of mediaeval verse, but this little volume, graceful as it is scholarly, will be cherished by such as have not forgotten all their Latinity and can enjoy simple tunefulness, mellow as the blackbird's song.
Previous page
