The Revival of Criticism. By J. S. Phillimore. (Oxford :
Blackwell. Is. Oil. net.)—Professor Phillimore writes so well —and so little—that his paper, read to the Classical Association last May, deserves a friendly word. He rejoices that the German period of classical scholarship, hated on- industry without taste. •
has come to an end, and pleads wisely and wittily for the true canons of textual criticism, as exemplified nowadays in the work of M. Havet and Professor Clark. In illustrating the value of good sense and literary tact in amending doubtful passages, Professor Phillimore gives a neat English instance. The ordinal tests of Milton's "Lycidas" print the familiar lines
Were it not better done, as others use, To sport w;th Amaryllis in the shade, And with tho tangles of Neaera's hair ? "
Substitute the old verb " withe "—by no means obsolete in Milton's day—for " with " in the third line, and observe how it improves the sense and the metre. The great critic is born and not made, but we agree with Professor Phillimore that the ordinary critic should qualify himself by wide reading rather than by quasi-scientific devotion to one or two texts.
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