5 JANUARY 1895, Page 34

The Phormio of Terence Translated into English Prose. By M.

II. Morgan. (Cambridge, U.S.)—This is in every respect a scholarly production. The volume itself has a classical air about it. Professor Greenough, his name happily metamor- phosed into one already famous in scholarship, Gronovius, con- tributes a prologue; the miniatures with which the Vatican manuscript of Terence (attributed to the tenth century) is illus- trated, have been reproduced; finally, Mr. Morgan has executed a spirited and idiomatic translation. Even the "Inscription," as it may be called, has been felicitously imitated, as follows :— "Relate XX. post Saecula die Concordiensi Professorib. Litt. Lat. Cont. Ham Curatoribus Luderum Egit in ljniversitatis Theatre Grex Academieus Modes Feeit Recentiores Unus ex Cnratoribus Tibis Impav. IV. Caron Gull Elcot Praesidis Anno XXV." The last four lines of the Prologue run thus "Igiter quod nos Latfne agemus ptillio

Gracco imigost nostri Saeculi; Oradea e t antiqii.m, antique. actio,

ReeSnIja ac novo In Lbto suet rel ma."

Which are thus Englished by the writer :— "The Latin that we speak in Grecim dress Mirrors the nature of our age no less.

Only the on ward acts and garb are old, The rest Is fresh as when 'twee fir.-t unrolled."

The miniatures are given in as many as twenty-six plates, and are curious in the extreme, though scarcely ornamental. The persona or mask, with its huge month, is particularly hideous. We do not wonder that, as Juvenal has it, " personae pallentis hiatum formidat infans."