Epistles, we need not suppose that he borrowed the idea, any more than he took the word, from Roman usage.

Μαρτυρεῖσθαι.

I have observed in later Greek documents the use of μαρτυρεῖσθαι μαρτυρία for the good name' witnessed of a man, just in the sense which is employed so powerfully in the New Testament (e.g. Heb. xi.). See a Galatian honorary dedication, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 1883, p. 19 : Σιλουανὸν Ἡλίου. ... [τει]μηθέντα [ὑπ]ὸ φυλῆ[ς κ]αὶ ματυ[ρ]ηθέντα ὑ[πὸ] βουλῆς [TO] Bouλns K.T.A. And Wood's Inscription from the Great Theatre, No. 1, Column 6, lines 15 and 21: μαρτυρίας καὶ τειμῆς ἀξι ούμενον.

Φιλοτιμεῖσθαι, φιλοτιμία.

I conclude with φιλοτιμία, φιλοτιμεῖσθαι perhaps the very commonest words in Greek honorary decrees, so common that it would be difficult to find an honorary decree without them (see e.g. C.I.A. ii. passim, or any

volume of Greek decrees). The following are specimens of the usual phraseology: ἐπαινέσαι εὐσεβείας ἕνεκα τῆς εἰς τοὺς θεοὺς καὶ φιλοτιμίας τῆς εἰς τὴν βουλὴν καὶ τὸν δῆμον τοὺς φιλότιμουμένους πρὸς εἰς or περὶ τὸν δῆμον—ἔπεμψαν τὴν πομπὴν (superintended the procession) ὡς ἠδύναντο φιλοτιμότατα. I quite endorse the note of Dr. Field on Romans xv 20. The meaning of the verb was clearly to act with public spirit, with devotion to the public and the success of the cause in hand. The transition to actions in which public devotion was not possible was easy and natural, so that piorquía scarcely means more than σroudý, with which word indeed it is frequently conjoined in public decrees (C.I.A. ii. p. 242; Č.I.G. 3595.) Similarly Julius Pollux, in his dedication of his Onomasticon, says of it: πεφιλοτίμηται γὰρ οὐ τοσοῦτον εἰς πλῆθος ὅποσον εἰς κάλλους ἐκλογήν ; as we should say 'my aim throughout my work has been such and such.'

E. L. HICKS.

MY DEAR PROFESSOR,

It is now some years ago since I had the pleasure of receiving from you a letter in which, referring to a false quantity I had mentioned as occurring in Buchanan's Alcaic Ode, Maiae Calendae, so highly commended by Dr. Johnson and others 1-viz. the participle 'dicatae' used with the first syllable long (Miscell. xi. 3), you expressed your surprise that Ruddiman, in his Vindication of Buchanan, though he deals with some other charges of false quantity, does not touch the one I had pointed out; and you added: 'the more I consider it, the more I am astonished that such a scholar and poet as Buchanan should have committed such an enormity. Do you know of anything equally gross in any other eminent author?' I have kept your letter by me because I anticipated that a time might come sooner or later when I might wish to give an answer to the question proposed in these last words fuller and more satisfactory than it was in my power to send you at the moment. And such a time has now arrived.

I have always been an admirer of Milton's

1 Wordsworth (Memoirs, ii. 469) speaks of it as 'equal in sentiment, if not in elegance, to anything in Horace.'

Latin poems, who, of all English writers in that department, is, I think, most worthy to be classed with our great literary Scotchman; and having lately read them again somewhat critically, I am tempted to give you the result of my perusal in regard more particularly to the point on which you formerly appealed to me in Buchanan's case. Not that I have any intention of going into them so minutely as the learned Dr. Charles Burney, in his well-known critique (1790), has gone into Milton's two or three short copies of Greek verses; but I shall bring forward enough to answer your inquiry; and at the same time to show that as a Latin verse-writer Milton certainly is not entitled to cast a stone at his Scottish brother on the score of superior exemption from blemishes:

'quas aut incuria fudit,

Aut humana parum cavit Natura ;' and that if Ruddiman was not so sharpsighted as he ought to have been in his examination of Buchanan, T. Warton and other scholarly critics upon Milton are no less liable to the same charge.

Meanwhile, remembering that I am writing to a learned Professor of Humanity in the

University of which Buchanan was so great an ornament, I shall feel that I am not called upon to enter into much explanation; but may be content merely to name the head and front of the offence' which I shall have to indicate in each particular case. Remembering, too, that there was a time when the works of Milton and Buchanan were ordered to be publicly burnt together in the Schools at Oxford (see Macaulay's Hist. v. 97), I can well imagine how naturally you may be inclined to smile at this malignant attempt of a modern Oxonian Tory and rank Prelatist to hang them both as literary culprits on the same critical gibbet!

1. First then, if you desire a gross false quantity which shall be fully a match for Buchanan's 'dicatae,' we know that Milton in his fifth Elegy on the very same subject as Buchanan's Ode to May Day, and in T. Warton's judgment far superior to it,' wrote and published in the first edition, 1645, 'quotannis,' with the last syllable short. For this, Salmasius, his violent antagonist, did not spare him. Consequently, in the second edition of 1673, the line (30) was altered, by the substitution of 'perennis,' as it now stands. But we also know that another false quantity scarcely, if at all, less 'enormous '-viz. 'păruere,' with the first syllable short-is still to be seen in his hexameters On the Fifth of November,' (Sylv. ii. 165). T. Warton indeed suggests that a defence may be found for it by reading it as the u consonant; for which (he says) there are authorities.' He refers, I suppose, to cases such as 'pituita' (Hor. Pers.) and perhaps 'fortuito' (Juv.) where 'u' may be taken to represent our 'w.' But I doubt whether these or any other of the examples given in Ramsay's Prosody, p. 132 seq., Carey, p. 172 seq. are sufficient to justify what Milton has written, and I cannot suppose that he himself contemplated any such justification.

2. Again, no defence can be alleged for making the second syllable of 'sentis' short, as is done in the copy of choliambics (Sylv. vii. 3) addressed by Milton to his friend Salsilli. Even if he forgot the rule which forbids such a short syllable, he ought to have remembered the example of Horace

'Sentis, ac veluti stet volucris dies,' or of Lucretius

'Naturam rerum ac persentis utilitatem.'

3. And this brings me to the case of the two copies of choliambics or scazons, in which, though both together they consist of

only forty-nine lines, Milton has broken the invariable law of Latin prosody, which requires an iambus in the fifth foot, no less than eighteen times. Terentianus Maurus gives us the rule very distinctly, and having stated the reason for it, viz. that two spondees may not come together, he warns against its violation:

'Quum tantum iambus hoc loco probe poni, Aliusque nullus rite possit admitti.' (693 seq.)

Warton and Todd both speak of the rule as 'indispensable'; but the latter suggests that Milton might perhaps think himself justified by the license admitted into Greek scazons.' It is true that Hipponax, who most probably invented this kind of verse, and that Babrius, who adopted it in his metrical version of Esop's Fables, occasionally allowed themselves to use a spondee in the fifth place; and it is also true that such lines have been deservedly stigmatized by grammarians as Ischiorrlogic,' or brokenbacked.' But what should we think of a modern Latin versifier, who, in writing sapphics, should introduce a trochee instead of a spondee in the second place (as Sappho has sometimes done), or in writing alcaics, should, in the third line of the stanza make the third foot an iambus, instead of a spondee (as Alcaeus in his few fragments that remain has invariably done); now that Horace, in improving and naturalizing those metres, has uniformly repudiated the said practices; just as Catullus and Martial, whenever they have composed scazons, have rejected the broken-backed alternatives occasionally admitted by Hipponax and Babrius Even the license which Catullus has taken more than once in his sapphics in imitation of his Greek model, we consider inadmissible in a modern writer, because Horace subsequently abstained from it altogether.

4. Again, I have noted down no less than twenty-seven instances in which Milton has violated another well-known canon of Latin prosody which forbids a short vowel to stand before a word beginning with sc, sp, or st. The law in question (about which there had been a good deal of bungling since Dawes misstated it in his Miscellanea Critica) has been thoroughly cleared up by the late Professor Ramsay (p. 260 seq.), who, after a full examination of all the evidence bearing upon the point, decides that 'this collocation ought never to be introduced into modern Latin poetry.' I confess I have been surprised to find that an ear so nice and delicate as Milton's should have allowed

And it is amusing to observe how the more recent editor of the elegant Aldine edition of Milton does indeed, on three several occasions, draw the reader's attention to the fact of the vowel made short before sc,' in the self-same little note thrice repeated verbatim (vol. iii. 260, 275, 295); but has nothing to say upon the twenty-four other instances of the same fault! Todd is not less merciful or unobservant than Warton, for he also has passed over every one of the twenty-seven passages sicco pede!

So much then for the prosodical peccadilloes of our great author. I am afraid we shall not find him more immaculate when we turn to his use of words.

1. For example, what would you say to any of your students who should bring to you in an exercise such a word as 'surdeat'? See Eleg. vii. 90. I suspect you would tell him that you had heard of 'surdesco' but never of 'surdeo.'

2. Or, again, what would you say if an attempt were made to palm off upon you the verb 'liceo' (to be lawful) used in any other form than that of the impersonal licet'? And yet Milton writes (Eleg. vi. 53) :—

'Talibus inde licent convivia larga poëtis.' 3. Neither do I imagine you would ap prove of the verb 'superemineo' being made to govern a dative case, as it does in Milton, Eleg. vii. 61, whereas in the Roman poets it always appears with an accusative.

4. Again, in Eleg. vi. 63, and Sylv. vi. 51, Milton puts a genitive case after 'vacans,' whereas, so far as I know, in classical authors that word is always used either absolutely, or with an ablative, although ' vacuus' is found with both cases.

5. I wish you would be so good as to look at Eleg. v. 27, and tell me whether you

do not think we ought to read 'utrinque' instead of utrique,' at the end of the former of these lines:

'Urbe ego, tu silvâ, simul incipiamus utrique: Et simul adventum veris uterque canat.'

I am aware that 'utrique' is sometimes, though rarely, used in the plural of two individuals, like 'ambo'; but here it is peculiarly awkward, with the singular following in the next verse.

6. Once more, I have little doubt you will agree with me that there must be something wrong in Sylv. ix. 168, where the construction requires an accusative case, per epexegesin; and yet we have 'Merlini dolus.' Is it possible that Milton could have fancied at the moment that dolus' was a neuter noun ?

In pointing out the foregoing blemishes both of versification and grammar, I do not forget that Milton's Latin verses were composed when he was quite young, i.e. between the ages of seventeen and twenty inclusive. But then we are obliged also to remember that he himself first gave them to the world in 1645, when he was thirty-seven, and that he republished them in 1673, the year before his death. As I have said, I admire them upon the whole very much; but I think I have shown that the remark thrown out by Johnson with reference to one of the compositions, the copy of scazons addressed to Salsilli, viz. that it is not secure against a stern grammarian,' must not be confined to that one production. Probably you yourself, as better fitted for the task, would have found cause to extend the application of the same censure considerably further than I I am,

have done.

P.S. Under the head of false quantities, I have not named 'melōs,' Sylv. vi. 37, nor 'egō' (which Ramsay utterly condemns, p. 61), ibid. 109, because something may be said for them both on the score of cæsura; neither have I included 'mēlos,' to be found twice at the end of a scazon (viz. Epigr. ix. 8, Sylv. vii. 22); because Milton, no doubt, had Persius's Prologue in mind-which indeed in the former place he has manifestly imitated; but in Persius-as you will know -the best editions, to avoid the false quantity, now read 'Pegaseium nectar.'

MR. LEAF announces in his Preface that 'the object of the present edition of the Iliad is to offer a guide to students anxious to know more of Homer than they can learn from elementary school books.' He may be congratulated on having attained this object, and on having done much more.

He has given us a book which is valuable as a monument of his own ripe scholarship, and which will be especially prized by English readers, because it makes accessible to them many of the most recent and most important results of German erudition. Modern Homeric literature grows apace: and it is difficult to overstate the debt of gratitude we owe to a student who will pick out for our benefit the pearls that are set deep in large books, or scattered widely in monographs and periodicals.

The text that Mr. Leaf prints agrees, as he tells us in his Introduction, in most points with Hentze's revision of Dindorf's edition (Teubn. Series, ed. 5); and while he refers to the apparatus criticus of La Roche, he passes a censure not undeservedly severe on its incompleteness and inaccuracy.

But Mr. Leaf scarcely touches the question of textual criticism himself, and gives only the briefest reference to codd. A, B, C, D, and Townl., remarking that 'none of the other complete MSS. are of special importance.' It is therefore difficult to estimate the grounds of his preference for particular readings, when he accepts them on the vague authority of all good MSS.,' 'best MSS.,' 'all the best MSS,' 'five MSS.,' 'some MSS.,' 'most MSS.,' nearly all our MSS.,' 'La Roche and others': though occasionally he presumes a much more detailed knowledge on the part of his readers; as, for example, in the note on K 398, 'Bovλevoire ἐθέλοιτε ACDH; βουλεύουσι . ¿éλovor GL. Mori, C (man. sec.) and A as a variant.' Mr. Leaf, in his Preface, confesses that when once the strict limits of a verbal commentary are passed, it is hard to NOS. II. & III. VOL. I.

....

know which path to choose.. .'; and, doubtless, he would be the first to acknowledge that the difficulty is at least as great in deciding how much to say, and how much to leave unsaid, in the matter of textual criticism.

He has enriched his commentary with very full explanations of Homeric Realien.' On matters connected with the armour of the Greek and Trojan heroes, Mr. Leaf is an original authority of no mean merit, as he has shown by his important contributions to the Journal of Hellenic Studies. The recent discoveries at Hissarlik, Mykenae, and Tiryns are freely drawn upon for purposes of illustration; and Helbig's valuable work on Homeric Archaeology is constantly cited. One passage may be noted where Mr. Leaf seems to have made some confusion in quoting this authority. In A 246 the σкπтроv of Achilles is described as χρυσείοις ἥλοισι πεπαρμένον, and the note runs thus, 'The golden nails fastened the blade to the handle; cf. A 29, and a full explanation of the whole question in Helbig, H. E. pp. 238 foll.' But there is no blade to attach to а σкηπтроν, and the parallel passage quoted in A 29, refers not to a okπтроν but to a gipos, which is properly described in Helbig, 238 foll. The discussion of the σKπтρоv will be found ou page 278, where it is classed among die mit Nägeln beschlagenen Holzarbeiten '

Sometimes Mr. Leaf seems to modify his views as he goes on, without making the necessary correction; as, for example, in the note on E 722, we read that the body of the car was very light, and when not in use was taken to pieces, and put upon a stand; see 441.' But in the commentary on the later passage, it is decided that such a construction would seriously interfere with the strength of a chariot.'

In his next edition Mr. Leaf will do well to verify his cross-references, and to bring the orthography of proper names to a more exact harmony. It is the solid excellence of the work that makes us jealous of the naevi on the egregium corpus.

Mr. Leaf is a conscientious and trustworthy guide in dealing with grammatical

E

constructions, and analysis of sentences. He has a clear view of his own, and is well abreast of the latest studies in dialectical forms and comparative syntax. Perhaps a more rigid exercise of self-denial would be wiser in questions of etymology. Fanciful derivations, in spite of their charm, are the will-o'-the-wisps of the misty marsh, and too often lead us deeper into the quagmire.

The very few pages assigned in the Introduction to the Origin of the Poems must be regarded as the net result of Mr. Leaf's studies, compressed into the narrowest possible form by the inexorable laws of space. But he makes substantial atonement by the excellent introductions prefixed to each book, on the model of those given in the AmeisHentze edition. The relation of the different books to the general poem is clearly set out, and the special difficulties and inconsistencies honestly dealt with. It is satisfactory to see the announcement that the second volume of Mr. Leaf's edition is 'in preparation.'

W. W. MERRY.

The Seven against Thebes of Aeschylus. With an Introduction, Commentary, and Translation, by A. W. VERRALL, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. London: Macmillan & Co., 1887. 78. 6d.

MR. VERRALL's edition of the Seven against Thebes is highly interesting, and, in a word, an important contribution to classical learning. The notes are full of instruction and suggestion; and he who has a taste for lexicography will find much to enter, sometimes with a query, in his interleaved Liddell and Scott. The translation is a work of the highest art, breathing the very spirit of Aeschylus. Though not in metrical form it is genuine poetry; and will be recognized as such by all who do not believe that metre in its narrowest sense, as distinguished from rhythm, is of the essence of poetry; by all who hold that the Psalms in the Book of Common Prayer are true poetry, and refuse that name to the New Version by Brady and Tate. It is a worthy successor to Prof. Jebb's masterly versions of Sophocles.

But all the excellences of this edition will not redeem it from the charge that it pursues a false method, unless Mr. Verrall succeeds in commending to the acceptance of scholars his views about strophic correspondence. If it is true that to múλais Bdóμais, 118, we have a sufficiently close antistrophic response in στόνων ἀϋτᾶς, 132,

then it follows that Hermann's στόνων ἀπύᾳ is wrong, because unnecessary, and, further, that a great part of the scholarship brought to bear on the choral portions of Greek Tragedy since the revival of learning has been labour thrown away, the pursuit of an ignis fatuus. Mr. Verrall's method revolutionises criticism in an important department of it. He adheres to his principles boldly. He gives in his text μαινομένα καρδίᾳ, 766, as the strophic equivalent to καί σφε σιδαροvóμw, 773. Now this is a case which will serve as a test of his theory. Did the copyist of the Medicean find κpadia, and (being ignorant of the existence of strophic correspondence) write kapdía, the form with which he was more familiar? Or did he write down καρδίᾳ because he found καρδίᾳ in the MS. from which he was copying; strophic correspondence, as we understand it, having no existence in the choral portions of the plays of Aeschylus, but being 'a fond thing vainly imagined' by all modern editors and by many ancient scholiasts! On the answer to this question must largely depend our estimate of the degree of excellence attained by Mr. Verrall's edition. If I agreed with his doctrine as to the limits of strophic correspondence, expounded with characteristic vigour and skill in Appendix I., I should feel constrained by parity of reasoning to give up the rule of the pause, if not the rule which governs the place of the anapaest in the senarius. But I do not feel disposed to accept his view. The copyist, I believe, finding κpadía in this passage changed it to καρδίᾳ, and finding παρβασίαν, 729, changed it to rapaẞaoíav, because he did not see any reason why he should write κραδίᾳ and παρβασίαν (forins unfamiliar to him), not knowing that there was any need for close metrical correspondence between strophe and antistrophe. In just the same way the copyist of Eur. Heracl. 529,

καὶ στεμματοῦτε κεἰ κατάρχεσθαι δοκεῖ, did not see, not knowing the rule of the pause, why he should not make the construction simpler by writing

καὶ στεμματοῦτε καὶ κατάρχεσθ ̓ εἰ δοκεῖ. Mr. Verrall has said nothing about the rule of the pause, but here too he would seem to revolt from the school of Porson, for in verse 13 he introduces a palpable violation reading, of the great Cambridge scholar's law in

ὥραν ἔχων θ ̓ ἕκαστος ως τις συμπρεπής.

Mr. Verrall's critical method has undergone a considerable change-and certainly