The Challenge of the Greek and other Essays. By T.
R. Glover (Cambridge University Press. 12S. 6d.)
Cambridge Humanist
The Challenge of the Greek and other Essays. By T. R. Glover (Cambridge University Press. 12S. 6d.) ALTHOUGH Dr. Glover tells us almost in tones of valediction that this collection of papers may be regarded by his friends as a substitute for an autobiography, his learning and intelligence are as vigorous and inspiring as ever. A slight tendency perhaps to be garrulous and irrelevant? No—that is only the liveliness of a mind kept young by re-reading old books, the Odyssey, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the confident wonder that every detail should be significant in a divinely ordered world. All these papers, whether on particular authors, Homer or Virgil or Athenaeus, or on particular byways of ancient civilisation, forestry or farming or fairy tales, are based on an affectionate reading of the classics almost without consideration of modern comment ; so that Dr. Glover can discuss the difficulties of Athenian food-supply, for example, without re- ferring to Mr. A. W. Gomme's researches on the population of Attica. His most valuable and characteristic" paper is perhaps his presidential address to the Classical Association on Purpose in Classical Studies, in which he argues with great force and persuasive- ness that great literature ancient as well as modern, must always be a criticism and interpretation of life, in opposition to the view, which seems to be increasingly fashionable, that the classics must be studied " without gush," for the sake of " scientific " research, or in order to prove that a German scholar has made a fool of himself, or because, as Housman said in 1892, " knowledge resembles virtue in this, that it is not merely a means of promoting good, but it is good in itself simply." The extensive reading of the classics, which seems to be more successfully encouraged at Cambridge than at other places where examinations tend to confine undergraduates to the intensive study of half a dozen ancient masterpieces, has produced in Dr. Glover a spacious culture reminiscent of the eighteenth century, humorously impatient of inconsistent detail, but ready to accept the good wherever it can be found ; and this readi- ness is typified by his suggestion that " if there is to be a statue of Christ, there is no better portrayal of him " than the sculptured head from Jerash in Palestine, reproduced as a frontispiece, which is " clearly modelled after Pheidias' Zeus."
JOHN MAVROGORDATO.
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