(5.) Guil. Hertzberg, Halis, 1843-4. (4 vols. 8vo.) This is by much the best and most complete edition that has appeared. Far superior in learning to his predecessors, and furnished with a complete collation of all the good MSS., he has given an excellent and accurate text, followed by a full and somewhat lengthy commentary (about 500 pages) in two separate volumes. To these he has added a volume of Quæstiones, of great value and research, in which he treats of the personal history of the poet and his friends, the idioms and diction, the genius and principles of composition, the dates and historical allusions, the MSS., editions, and many other collateral points. On this edition the present work is principally founded, though in most cases I have been compelled to give the results only, without the details of his reasonings, whether critical or exegetical. At the same time, there are many of his views which I could not accept, and in not a few instances I have preferred the old to his new interpretations. His fault, perhaps, is an inclination to dwell too much and too curiously on words apart from context. This, which is most important in very accurate writers, is apt to mislead in the off-hand and almost reckless versification of Propertius.

With regard to orthography, I entirely agree with those who think that the best MSS. should be followed, where there is anything like consent in a certain form of a word, and that an attempt to reduce all spelling to uniformity is to do that for an ancient writer which he did not do for himself. In the Augustan age, as inscriptions incontestably prove, there was not that fixed standard of writing which modern languages generally exhibit: they wrote tristis or tristes (tristeis), quoties or quotiens, adfero or affero, maximus or maxumus, and a hundred other such

minutiæ, almost as caprice suggested.* And this fact is not without its analogy in other languages. The AngloSaxons rarely spelt the same word alike for three times. consecutively; even in English letters and documents of two or three centuries old the same inconsistency may be noticed in a remarkable degree; nor are Greek inscriptions of the best ages altogether free from it.

Entirely assenting to the opinion of Dr. Donaldson,† that Latin scholarship cannot be considered in a flourishing condition in this country, I may venture to hope that this work, even if it should be pronounced but an additional evidence of the fact, will prove an inducement to others to exert themselves, not indeed less in the cause of Greek, but more in the cause of Roman literature. Of the two languages, the Latin is assuredly the more difficult, as well as, for all practical purposes, by much the more important. In this country, the number of Greek scholars probably far exceeds that of those who are equally proficient in Latin. Generally, I believe, it would be found, that if a passage of Sophocles and an ode of Horace should chance to be set in any University examination, a better knowledge of the former than of the latter author would be displayed. The truth is, very few can be great in both languages. It is not therefore unreasonable that especial attention should be paid to one: the evil to be deprecated is the sacrificing the more useful to the more fascinating study. If the brilliant imagination, originality of thought, and magnificent language of the Greeks are more captivating, and if everything Roman seems but a

* See the excellent remarks on this subject in C. O. Müller's Preface to Varro (Lips. 1837) p. xxv.-xxxi., and Ritter, Preface to Tacitus.

+ See Varronianus, postscript to preface of 2nd. ed.

deterioration from that ancient standard of consummate excellence,* we must on the other hand remember, that the stage on which the former acted their part in history was an insignificant corner of the world—a mere promontory of an inland sea, with its opposite coast and intervening islands; while the other nation swayed the destinies of the known world, swallowed up all civilization into its vortex, and exercised an enduring influence on mankind to which the Greeks offer no parallel whatever.

If we take an impartial view of the state and prospects of classical scholarship in this country, there will be found some reason for thinking that it is rather declining than advancing. A misgiving is widely prevalent, that it is not worth the pains, time, and expense necessary in acquiring it. Society seems in a state of excitement, and progressive restlessness, which does not accord with this patient study of bygone times and obsolete languages, this constant dwelling on scenes and events over which two thousand years have rolled. The English Universities, of which the Public Schools must be more or less the reflection, certainly do not exhibit any increased activity in the cause of classical learning. On the contrary, other and more practical studies seem gradually but surely encroaching upon them. Few, very few, classical works issue from them; and the languages themselves, as far as they are pursued, seem applied to patristic and theological rather than to purely classical literature. Doubtless the Universities are right in not setting themselves to oppose a change of feeling

*I have just left Rome, where, in visiting its museums, which mark the ebbing and flowing of art from the earliest ages, I have wondered at the incomparable distance at which the

works of the ancient Greeks stand, raised like the Acropolis of their cities above the productions of all succeeding ages.'-Sir Charles Fellows, Travels in Asia Minor (1840.)

which is either irresistible, or could only be resisted at the sacrifice of their own popularity and usefulness. They are no longer able to sway public opinion, and therefore they must be content to follow it. The fact seems to be, that a reaction has set in, or rather perhaps, the tide may be said to be on the point of turning from the excessive and pedantic classicality of the last two centuries to the more immediate requirements of every-day life. There is a demand for information rather than for elegance of taste or refinement of the intellect. The material and the palpable are beginning to form elements of education, hitherto more or less restricted to the abstract and the speculative. Commercial activity and enterprise have enormously increased, while the life of studious retirement and literary enjoyment has become almost associated with eccentricity. New facts in science are becoming daily known,-facts astonishing in their nature and infinitely important in their application, while the field of discovery in the phenomena of the dead languages is becoming more nearly exhausted. Porsonian criticism, and the dry niceties of Elmsleian canons, with difficulty maintain their scholastic position against the engrossing investigations of a Humboldt, the rapidly developing miracles of steam and electricity, or the glorious revelations of time and space as exhibited in geology and astronomy. Impatience of the old educational trammels has already shown itself in the foundation of many rival establishments in the form of proprietary colleges and self-supporting institutions, in which the experiment of a more general and enlarged education than that afforded by the grammar schools and the Universities is being tried with great success. In England the long-dominant and over-wealthy Universities have been taught a reluctant lesson that they must advance

along with the times, and keep up with them too. A Latin speech, a concio ad clerum, or a disputation in the divinity schools, can seldom obtain an audience. They are regarded as mere forms and obsolete practices: nor does it seem possible efficiently to revive them. They are remnants of what were essentially church times. But it is certain that the ecclesiastical element can be no longer dominant in secular education: and herein perhaps lies the secret of the change in question. In France, a very influential party has recently combined-hitherto without success-to put down entirely the study of the pagan authors, and to allow the use of the Greek and Latin languages only in their restricted application to theological writings. More recently still, the popular cry in England has condemned the old custom of acting the plays of Terence at Westminster school. In fine, it is at length fairly acknowledged, that however useful and important classical learning may be, as an auxiliary department of a polite education, it was a grievous mistake to suppose that to be a Greek or a Latin scholar was to be accomplished as a gentleman, able as a statesman, and fitted for engaging in any profession.

Now, it would be absurd to lament as a degeneracy the change of feeling which undoubtedly exists on this important subject of education, and on the part which classical learning has been used to take in it.

It is almost trifling to remark that a man may be a good bishop without having edited a Greek play or collated a Greek MS.; a great discoverer in physical science, and a great benefactor of mankind, without knowing a dochmiac from an iambic foot. No one of sense now looks to such qualifications as sufficient in themselves; and the extravagant honours which in the last generation were heaped upon