MSS., and seems to belong to a subsequent era. It belongs to a class of poems, which, beginning as early as the tenth century with the Anglo-Saxon versifiers, were first transferred to rhyming Latin by Mapes and his contemporaries, and continued long after them, becoming especially popular in France under the title of Débats. They are indeed debates or discussions between two parties, who are sometimes mere personifications, as wine and water, the body and the soul; sometimes real mortals of different classes or opinions. Two 'amorous ladyes,' one admiring a soldier and the other a scholar, hold a contention which one's lover loveth most,' and ultimately refer the matter to Cupid himself, who decides in favor of the scholar; for so we must translate clericus, his position being much like that of an English college Fellow, well supplied with the desirabilities of life, a lover of learning and good cheer, and having little to do with preaching and other peculiar functions of a modern priest or clergyman. The poem, which probably dates nearly as late as 1300, was very popular in the sixteenth century. It is comprised in some continental collections, and we learn from Ritson that George Chapman translated it into English in 1595. His version would be worth having, but Mr. Wright was not able to find a copy, and therefore it is not likely that any of us ever will.

Although the aspect of the poem is perfectly serious, I have sometimes thought there was a latent satire intended in it. The reasons which Flora gives for preferring her scholar love are mostly of a very mercenary character, and his own learning is rather thrown into the background compared with his wealth and luxury. If the vow of celibacy had been strictly observed by the clergy in those days, the very argument of the piece and the final decision, that the scholar is by far the most ardent lover,' would be a bitter satire in itself. But we know that numbers ef the English priests were virtually married: these left-handed marriages were formally condemned in council in 1215, but the papal ordinances on the subject were enforced with difficulty. Several of the poems in this collection, written immediately after Mapes's time, handle the question with great boldness, and display much good sense and sound protestant doctrine.

Feb. 18th.

CARL BENSON.

PROFESSOR LINCOLN'S HORACE.* Literary World, April 1851.

WE are somewhat inclined to question the demand or necessity for a new edition of Horace. Our doubt has no reference to foreign labors in this field. With a nationality much to be desiderated in some other matters connected with literature, the college-going and college-teaching part of our community has invariably hesitated to receive into general use the work of a European scholar until it receives the imprimatur of a native editor. The American classical editor, therefore, has only to take into consideration home competitors, and these in the present instance, we think, have already pretty well occupied the ground, and the labors of some of them have acquired a reputation not limited to their section of the country or to the country itself. We are disposed to think that, without going out of the beaten track, any of our professors having leisure and inclination to edit might find something more left to be done in Virgil than in Horace; but how we do wish that some of them would make the attempt to enlarge a little the boundaries of our very limited collegiate Latin course! For instance, how many American students know anything about Lucretius? Yet is he not, whether considered in a literary or a philological point of view, quite as worthy to be read as Ovid? A move of this kind can only be made by our Professors; not merely is it their peculiar business, but they are the only persons by whom it can be done, because first, there are very few men out of their circle qualified for the work; secondly, where such a rara avis as a scholar of leisure exists, the very fact of his not being connected with any institution of learning, prevents him from introducing a book into the standard

The Works of Horace. With English Notes for the use of Schools and Colleges. By J. B. Lincoln, Professor of the Latin Language and Literature in Brown Universitey. New York: Appleton & Co.

Vol. I.

18

course anywhere. The classical editor here must have some large school or college as a stand-point to begin with.

Since, however, Professor Lincoln has, by reasons best known to himself, been led to the conclusion that another edition of Horace was required, it is but bare justice to him to say that he has executed the task in a very workmanlike manner. The book itself is quite a treat to one's eyes after the usual run of American schoolbooks large and correct print, handsome type, and a liberal allowance of margin; and it is further embellished with occasional vignettes, though of these we must be allowed to say, that neither their beauty, number, nor importance altogether justifies the flourish of trumpets made about them in the preface. The foot-notes of various readings are very convenient, and contribute to give the work a scholarly appearance; we respect an editor who has the courage to give various readings. The critical notes are good so far as they go, good enough to make us wish for more. Unluckily, this question of more or fewer notes has become almost a party one between New York and New England professors, the former, as a general rule, taking the side of more copious, the latter of more scanty illustration; so that it is not easy to approach the subject without being suspected of, perhaps without being imperceptibly biased by, some feeling of partisanship.

The obvious argument against the profuse annotation system (a system more favored in Germany than in England: we mention this fact because it has been our fortune to find an opinion to the contrary strangely prevalent in some quarters) is that it makes the learner depend too much on his notes and not enough on his lexicon and himself. There is a subordinate reason arising from considerations of convenience and expense the addition which many notes make to the bulk and cost of a volume. As regards this latter, we should begin where there is any danger of making too big a book, by throwing out all parallel passages from modern poets and all from ancient poets when introduced to illustrate the sentiment only, such quotations, like pictorial illustrations, seeming to us not strictly in place in a critical edition. We are inclined also to admit that the practice of giving translations in the notes merely to show how a sentence or

phrase may be put into the best English, has been sometimes carried to excess. For the student to understand the meaning of a passage is but half the battle; he should labor to express it in elegant as well as accurate terms, thus bringing into play and improving his knowledge of his own language. * At the same time it must be said that the eastern students who are left to exercise themselves in this way do not appear to profit much by the opportunity. The first thing that strikes a New York trained boy at a New England college is the barbarous style of construing adopted by most of his classmates, which, aiming at bald literalness, errs as much from real accuracy as the elegant but loose paraphrases to which he has been accustomed. A proper style of translation, however, is much better learned from the teacher than from a book; but here again it happens unfortunately that a great many of our teachers are not over qualified for this task. Indeed, the American editor of a school or college text-book must always bear in mind this deficiency of the average teachers. Still, all things considered, we advocate a sparing use of notes which translate merely for the sake of the language, but with notes which explain grammatical difficulties and verbal niceties, the case is different: we never saw too many of them in an American classic. The most common error of a student working by himself and we speak not of mere tyros, but of those who have made considerable progress overlook the existence of difficulties, to get a general idea of the meaning of passage without being able to explain the construction and the force of particular words accurately. Now, as we have already said, many of our students have to work alone, and many with inferior teachers. Moreover, the chances of this error are greatly multiplied by the character of the national mind; where there is one American boy deficient in sharpness and quickness of apprehension, there are fifty deficient in habits of patient investigation and accurate discrimination. Take a subtle Greek author Sophocles for instance; examine a student who has read him alone or under an

is to

* Writing out translations is a valuable exercise not sufficiently attended to in any of our academic institutions. It is the best possible preparation for English composition, and would be an advantageous substitute for it in the earlier stages of the College course.

incompetent tutor; he will give you a fair outline of the general meaning, but when you come to question him closely, why is this particular word used here? what would this construction be in ordinary Greek? why does this collocation of words mean so and so when it usually means something else? he cannot go on for two lines without stumbling. Now, of course we do not mean to compare Horace with Sophocles for difficulty; yet there are many latent niceties (dodges and catches as they would be called in Cantab slang) all through the Odes, and the very fact that they have the reputation with most students of being easy is the strongest argument in support of our position. The Satires, on the contrary, are considered hard, and it is just for this reason because their difficulties are appreciated that our students on the whole know them better than any portion of any author read in our colleges.

We did not intend to make any particular remarks on individual notes in this work; but a single one which has struck our eye we cannot forbear commenting on briefly. At v. 6 of the Epistle to the Pisos (usually known as the Ars Poetica), Prof. Lincoln says "isti tabulæ. Such a picture as that: isti expresses contempt." We do not believe that iste in classical Latin ever expresses anything of the sort. There was a dictum of the old grammarians to that effect; and it is because it was one of the things particularly impressed upon us at school, and because we not only read but wrote a good deal of Latin before discovering the error, that we are anxious to correct it in others whenever the opportunity presents itself. Iste (still represented by ese in Spanish and cotesti in Italian) is the demonstrative pronoun referring to the second person, as hic refers to the first person and ille to the third; hic, this by me, iste, this or that by you, this of yours; ille, that (at a distance from both of us). The idea of implied contempt probably originated thus; in an advocate's speech, iste, your man, would be the term naturally applied to the client of the opposite counsel, and as "your man" was pretty sure to be well abused before the speech was through, grammarians fancied that the word had a bad sense and denoted a contemptible object in itself. So far all is tolerably plain sailing; but besides this there is a secondary and loose use of iste to denote a subject