Tychiades. By Alexander Dickeson. (T. Fisher Unwin. 68.) —Mr. Dickeson
may please himself by describing his " Tale of the Ptolemies " as a translation from an original of the third century B.C.; but it would have been well to invent a better name than " Ornithovius " for an unknown author of that date. We are introduced to a quite bewildering number of persons, Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, and so forth. Now and then we come on a familiar name, and do not always find it exactly used. So at a great banquet given by Ptolemy to his Court we read that Philetas was placed near Hecataeus, the polished and profound historian. But what Hecataeus was this? There was a Hecataeus of Miletus circa 500 B.C., and another, sometimes confounded with him, of Abdera ; but as the latter was with Alexander the Great in 334 B.C., he is not likely to have been at a banquet in 280. If Mr. Dickeson, or " Ornithovius," had been content with a more moderate display of erudition, of which he has a fair share, he would have done better. The story scarcely interests us, but there are some effective scenes.
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