Homer. By J. W. Mackail. (Hammersmith Publishing Company. 2s. 6d.
net.)—Professor Mackail delivered this lecture last March "on behalf of the Independent Labour Party." A. good many things have happened since then, but with the general result that generous help is even more wanted by the party now than it was then. Professor Mackail, who is, of course, thoroughly at home in his subject, gives a criticism of the Homeric poems generally, with a brief reference to the critical problems, follows this with a sketch of life as the poet saw or conceived it, and then gives his readers a set of well-chosen illustrations in selected passages. He quotas Pope's rendering of the istpicrTid of Hector and Andromache, then an excellent specimen of his own version of the Odyssey, whore his chosen metre—the Omar Khayylin quatrain—is seen at its best, and then some prose renderings, among them the incomparable "Mourning for Hector." This is an admirable piece of work which for every reason we heartily commend to our readers.
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