4 MAY 1929, Page 37

Dr. Way was no doubt at work on the third

volume (Books VII-IX) of The Aeneid of Virgil in English Verse (5s.),and Messrs. Macmillan pledged to publish it before they knew of the two other English verse translations of the Aeneid which have appeared within the last few weeks. It is extraordinary that there should be a market for three of these at the same thne and even more extraordinary that this one should be in English hexameters whiCh rhyme, generally in twos, occasion- ally in threes and just now and then, for a treat, in fours. Dr. Way's attempt is gallant ; he is very nearly as erudite in English as was Virgil in Latin ; moreover he is often, in so far as his terrible metre will permit it, almost poetic ; he is always faithful to his original—faithful even unto the death of any- thing which makes pleasant reading in our language. But' Virgil did not, perhaps, set out to be pleasant, and Dr. Way certainly gives his meaning word for word, line for line, dactyl for dactyl.

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