Smoot, Booics.-7'he Helena of Euripides. By C. S. Jerram, M.A.
(Clarendon Press.)—Mr. Jerram has provided upper and middle forms with an excellent edition of what he calls "a truly romantic play, full of incident." Among the good features of the book are a full and appreciative introduction, a critical appendix to which reference is made in the notes only when necessary, and a general index. In the notes wo have remarked especially that precision of statement which in so many school books is not only not attained, but apparent& avoided, as unsuitable to the youthful mind. The really- industrious schoolboy is generally "a slave of the letter," and is merely vexed and bewildered by the gossip on paper which professes to be scholarship "made easy."
Thus on line 847, Mr. Jerrarn's note is " licrrtz quippe qui, being one who,' i.e., 'since I,' Ssc." So, roBeivbs 11/.41pa is "'0 diem optatam,' t with the nom. marking an exclamation, rather than an address." Sometimes the sense is given happily by English idiom : "hr elSis, 'you must be ;' iv043' ice' 4a, 'you were there all the time.'" Wo are glad to see that Mr. Jerram, in discussing oSre el caSep enters a general protest against "all explanations which require something to 'be understood,' to complete the sense." The explanation of acre' obv b Spacror as equivalent to Opacrov, oe' LI, "do, you know what," is rightly rejected, and the idiom is said to consist in a change from the indirect to the direct construction.—Selec- tions from the Latin Poets. By E. Crowell, Moore Professor of Latin in Amherst College. (Ginn, Heath, and Co., Boston.)— This is a handy and well-printed volume of selections from Catullum, Lucretius, Tibullns, Propertina, Ovid, and Lucan. It cannot be Said that there is much original work in the book. Indeed, Professor Crowell seems to have been content, wherever that was possible, to leave even the task of selection to others. In the caste of Tilyallus, Propertius, and Ovid, where English books of extracts are available, the whole twenty-seven pieces (with two doubtful exceptions) are such as have been already made accessible in this way. In annotation, too, Professor Crowell is not impatient of suggestion, and it raises one's high opinion of school-books in themselves excellent, when we are presented with such imposing lists of authorities on the Fasti as "Keigbtley, Paley, Ramsay, and Hallam," or "Paley, Keightley, Hallam, and Ramsay." The deference, at once naïve and kindly, to the opinion of young scholars shown in these cases is noticeable elsewhere, as when, on " delicatos ease" (" Catullus," 1., 3), besides Mr. Ellis's version, "to play the idler," we have Mr. Simpson's, "to frolic ;" and when we are told that " Lachmaun and Cruttwell find nothing incredible in the story "of Lucretius's madness and suicide. As Professor Crowell makes a general acknowledgment of obligations, it seems hardly necessary to refer some notes to their authors, while the rest, which are also borrowed, are printed without such reference. Professor Crowell has a curious way of printing as renderings what were intended only as explanations, e.g., in " Lucretius," I., 65, "super mortalibus instans," "standing over mortals, being herself above ;" and ib., 92, " genibus summissa," "let down by her knees," where Mr.
Munro's " lit. " is left out. We rather suspect that Mr. Manro's translation was not accessible. The effect of this plain prose is slightly incongruous, after the "tear-wet lips," "sea-shell tint," "light of immortality," and other such splendours which adorn the notes on Catullus. Bat then, Mr. Simpson has not edited Lucretius. Although Professor Crowell has not, so far as we have discovered, contributed anything to the notes beyond a few quotations from English poets and a number of references to. American grammars, the selection of notes and introductory matter has been made with diligence and care. The scholarship of Measrs« Sella; Munro, Ellis, and Postgate requires no encomium from us, but we may say of the rest of the notes that they are accurate and practi- cally aseful.—Eranus, a Collection of Ewercises in the Alcaic and' Sapphic Metres. By F. W. Cornish, Assistant-Master at Eton, (Kogan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—This is, of course, a joint production, Mr. Cornish's colleagues having contributed most of the thirty-one exercises. We have tried specimens in both parts, and found them run with ease and spirit. There is no vocabulary, but sufficient and judicious help is given under each exercise— Of other school-books, we have to notice a new and cheaper edition of Mr. Keith Johnston's Geography. (Stanford.)—We learn from the' publisher's preface that "the whole of the strictly geographical in- formation has been retained," so that the omissions, while making a great reduction in price possible, do not interfere with the essential character of the book.— A smaller book, partaking of the same. character, and useful in its way, is Glimpses of the Earth, by J. IL Blakiston. (Griffith and Farran.)—It is meant to eerie as a text-book for lectures on descriptive geography, lectures which are to be illus- trated by a continual use of the map. In the hands of a good teacher, we can imagine it likely to be very usefal.—The Pupil's Geography, by G. F. H. Sykes, B.A. (Relfe Brothers), is a collection of facts which the teacher is to inform with life.—Of "Readers," we have before us the Third and Fourth Books of the Illustrated Readere (Longmans) ; and the Second Historical Reader, by the Rev. D.
Morris, B.A.. (Isbister.)—We cannot help thinking that 'the- grest pains which have been spent on Hudibras, edited by Alfred Milner, M.A. (Macmillan), have been not judiciously expended. Do what, you will with Iludibras—and Mr. Milner has been diligent in expurgating—yon cannot make it a suit. able book for boys. It is instinct with religious partisanship, and needs the correction of a much wider kuowledge than a boy is likely to have at his command, before it can be read with profit. Apart from this consideration, Mr. Milner deserves credit for his work. Older readers will certainly find it useful, for Butler wants not unfrequently the intervention of the commentator.----Mr. Gustave Masson has produced a very useful reading book in his [Lanni IV. and the End of the War of Religion (Sampson Low and Co.), which he has edited, with notes and tables, historical, genealogi- cal, &c., from M. Guizot's History of France. Professor Cassel has published, for the benefit of teachers and persons pursuing a course of private study, a Key to Cassel and Karcher's French Translation, Junior Course. (Longmans.)—We have seen no better book of its kind, so happy is the idea of the selection, so convenient is the form, and so moderato the price, than Poems of English Heroism, collected and arranged, with notes, historical and illustrative, by Arthur Compton Auchmuty, M.A. (Kogan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—We have also received the first part of Poetry for the Young. (Griffith and Farran.)--In mathematics and arithmetic, we have A Treatipe on the Theory of Determinants, with graduated sets of exercises, by Thomas Muir, M.A. (blaemillan and Co.) ; and from the same pub- lishers, An Elementary Treatise on Conic Sections, by Charles Smith, M.A. ; and An Aid to Arithmetic, by E. Dever, M.D., (Griffith and Ferran.)
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