Horace for English Readers. By E. C. Wickham, D.D. (The
Clarendon Press. 3s. 6d. net.)—No one is more to be trusted in the interpretation of Horace than Dr. Wickham. So much any student of his edition of the poet will allow. To scholarship he adds a delicate taste and an insight into the mind of his author which scholarship frequently lacks. If this continuous transla- tion into English prose does not quite come up to onr expectation, this is probably because the expectation was very high. Let us take a specimen, the fine passage where Hannibal is made to confess that Rome ie invincible :—" That race which sprung from the fires of Ilium, through the tossing of Tuscan waters bore safely its sacred treasures, its sons and aged sires, home to Ausonian cities, like the holm-oak shorn by ruthless axes on Algidus, where black leaves grow thick, through loss, through havoc, from the very edge of the steel draws new strength and heart. Not more persistently, when he lopped its limbs, the Hydra grew sound again in the face of Hercules, chafing at the foil ; nor stranger portent did the soil of Colchis breed or Thebes in Echion's day. Plunge it in the deep, it comes forth the fairer. Close with it—mid loud applause it will throw its conqueror, though his powers were still unbroken, and will wage a war for wives to tell of." " Sprung from the fires of Ilium" hardly gives the force of "fortis ab hie cremato." • There is no idea of origin, or of the phoenix. " Rising boldly " might serve. We should prefer " children " to "sons" for autos; it gives the idea of helplessness. "Chafing at the foil" is hard to understand; " grew sound again " does not represent crevit ; the legend was that two heads grew where one had been lopped. " Though his powers were still unbroken " gives six words for one. There is much in the translation which calls for no criticism ; and the whole, enriched as it is with some seasonable notes, will be welcome to many readers.
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