BOOKS.

PROFESSOR NETTLESHIP'S "ESSAYS IN LATIN L 1TE RATURE."

IT must seem to outsiders that a large proportion of these Essays is filled with matter of small importance. But delivered, as many of them were, in the form of Lectures, it may fairly be supposed that Professor Nettleship was aware of what his audience required. Still, it may not unfairly be argued that a great deal of this book is of a kind that was scarcely worth printing. The conclusions which the Professor has reached concerning Verreius Flaccus and Nonius Marcellus may be as sound as he believes them to be, but they are not important conclusions after all ; and the processes by which he reaches them might better have rested in his note-books. It would be quite out of place in these columns to examine those processes at any length. They must be applied, of course, if we would arrive. at sound conclusions respecting the sources of the Latin commentaries of the fourth century. But the most enthusiastic of classical students will scarcely study them long before he decides that these Latin commentaries themselves do not repay the trouble of perusal. Yet Professor Nettleship, as we have already admitted, may have reasons for thinking that these commentaries may be profitable pabulum for his hearers; so we shall say no more about them.

His own Critical Miscellanies challenge more attention ; but here, too, we must confess that we are not satisfied with the results which his industry obtains. That there is room still for a scholar of Bentley's calibre to work in the field of conjectural emendation is unquestionable. Cobet and Madvig, to name no others, have shown how much there is left to be done in that

* Essays in Latin Literature. By H. Nettieship, Corpus Professor of Latin Literature in the University of Oxford. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1885. field. But Professor NettleshiP's efforts, so far as we can judge of them, are neither sound nor brilliant. It is easy enough, of course, to correct such a wretched miscopied gloss as " Ines- tricabilis ! error laber intns," by writing " inextricabilis error, labyrinthus," instead of (with Hagen) "inextricabilis error, labor invictus ;" but, as Horace Smith sang, "Reason asks, cui bow ?" As a test of Professor Nettleship's skill in divination, we shall quote a passage of more fruitful interest. Ovid, in his Ernnlphian poem, " Ibi.," offered, among a hundred other good wishes for his enemy, the following :—

" litmus parnm mitis, sed non impnne, Prometheus Aeries volucres sanguine 6xus alas."

The only difficulty, if difficulty it can be called, that exists in these lines, lies in the words "parum mitis." These words Mr. Ellis, for reasons which we cannot fathom, chose to translate "that failed in his philanthropy." But is this, asks our Professor very blandly, the natural interpretation of the word ? A very cheerful negative can be given to that question, of course ; but why should Mr. Nettleship think it worth while to quote Merkel's perfeztly needless " operum mitis," and propose " parens ignis " himself P " Parum mitis" refers, we take it, to the stern obduracy with which Prometheus rejected the offered clemency of Zeus, and, so regarded, the phrase seems simple enough.

Turning now to the essays in this volume, which are of more

general interest, we have still to notice a certain tendency to dwell on insignificant details, which prevents us from thinking that Professor Nettleship's method of dealing with Latin literature is the right one. Aulus Gellius is a writer from whom much may be learnt by picking out his plums, and a very amusing essay might be written about his Nodes Atticae. Mr. Nettleship prefers to give an exhaustive analysis of the contents of that work as an aid towards understanding the principles which underlie its apparent chaos, and the probable character and periods of the authorities from whom Genius mostly derived his knowledge. What should we think of an English scholar who treated Southey's Doctor in a similar manner ? So, too, in his criticism of the Aeneid, we find analysis and to spare, but find ourselves no " forrarder " at the end of that analysis. The merest " tiro " that ever wrote on Virgil could write as Mr. Nettleship does about Aeneas. What we want to know is how a poet of Virgil's admitted powers should have made his hero so intolerably uninteresting. Mr. Nettleship, while nibbling at some of Mr. Gladstone's remarks on Virgil, fails to catch the import of Mr. Gladstone's central view. Certainly nothing he has said leaves us in doubt of the correctness as well as of the felicity of Mr. Gladstone's description of Aeneas as "a king of shreds and patches."

In his essay on Catalina, Mr. Nettleship adopts the now

generally accepted view that the poet's famous Lesbia was the infamous sister of Cicero's Clodins. We rather regret this ; for, in spite of all Professor Munro's brilliant criticisms, we still think that she was not. Professor Munro, if we remember rightly, does not grapple at all with Carmen VIII. Yet how the conclusion that that poem could possibly have been addressed by a young man of Catullus's position in life to a mature lady of Clodia's exalted rank, is a puzzle which Mr. Ellis's explanation can hardly be thought to solve. And here we must notice the curious fact that the critics who are so willing to identify Lesbia with Clodia are, as a rule, almost fanatical admirers of the love-poetry of Catalina. Yet, on their hypothesis, all this fine poetry was wasted on a wealthy and profligate woman of fashion, mach older than the poet who composed it. We do not mention this fact in Mrs. Grundy's spirit. Worse things happened at Rome than intrigues between needy young pro- vincials and rich Roman matrons ; but, if Lesbia was indeed Clodia, do let us call a spade a spade, and place the so-called love-poems of Catalina on their proper level.

Mr. Nettleship has a great deal to say about Horace, and

what he does say is frequently very suggestive. He will not accept, any more than we can, Mr. Verrall's new theory about the Odes, but he mentions it with the respect which it merits. His own view, however, goes much nearer the mark. Sneering critics have been found to see nothing in Horace's lyric flights but the neatly-fitted mosaics of an artificial court-poet. Mr. Nettleship says, with more justice, that they "represent the highest ideas which the national life of the Roman Empire was

capable of inspiring." In comparison with the immeasurable superiority of Greek poetry as a whole, it is easy to forget what is implied in this remark. Yet more is meant than meets the ear, for the Roman Empire, with all its faults, stands out alone

among the powers of antiquity in its endeavour "to work out the great practical problem of the rational organisation of human life." But while we welcome very warmly, and recom- mend, especially to young students, very strongly, the essay in which the life and poems of Horace are handled by Mr. Nettle- ship, we must express our dissent from the far too sweeping conclusion which it reaches :—" Take," he says, "two poets of equal powers of imagination and command of language, and let

the one devote himself to the tale of his own loves and hatreds, while the other never loses sight of the wider scope' of the great movements of events, of the larger interests of his fellow- men ; and the style of the one, however luminous and intense, however great its command over the music of human passion,

will be imperfect and fitful, while that of the other will rise to the height of his conception, and become a beacon in literature.' It is no doubt to the perfection of his style that Horace owes much of his immortality, but the inference which, if we under- stand him, Mr. Nettleship draws—the inference, namely, that that perfect style was due to the interest which the poet felt, as

a patriot, in contemporary events—is very questionable.

We have space only for one or two verbal criticisms on the remaining essays in this volume, but we must not omit to say that all of those essays are distinctly good. We doubt, however,

whether Mr. Nettleship's suggestion that we should substitute "nova succrescunt " for "its verborum " (De Arte Poet., 61), will find approval from any scholar. The difficulty which this alteration is intended to meet is no difficulty at all. The same will scarcely

be said for Mr. Nettleship's alteration as translated by himself. "So the old generation perishes, and the new growth flourishes,

and is vigorous like the young generation of man." What is the "old generation that perishes." Again, in a well-known passage in the Odes,—"Caementis licet °coupes Tyrrhenum omno tuis et mare Apnlicum," mare publican may be as "infinitely superior" a reading to snare Apulicum as Mr. Nettleship says it is. But if mare publican' is right, Tyrrltenum must be wrong, he contends ; and of this, too, we make no question. What puzzles us is that he, and Mr. Munro also, can accept Lech-

mann's conjecture terrenum, which to us is simply unintelligi- ble; or, rather, perhaps, we should say untranslateable. We fancy, too, that he will convince no one that the interpretation which he proposed for " secare partes " in the twelve tables is correct. Mommsen accepts Quintilian's interpretation of this phrase without a murmur, and makes a grimly humorous reference to Shylock. But Mr. Nettle- ship is horrified by the thought of a debtor's dismembered body, and quite forgets Quintilian's express statement that the mutilation never took place. He forgets also that if his own perfectly inadmissible interpretation were accepted, some con- siderable injustice would be done by allowing a creditor to take more than his fair share of a debtor's estate. Mr. Nettleship's essays on "Early Italian Civilisation," and on "The Earliest Latin Literature," are the best, perhaps, and most valuable in his volume ; and we regret that we cannot spare room for discussing one or two of the points which they raise. We regret still more that we cannot quote from his interesting account of the German scholar Moritz Haupt some theories of interpretation which re- quire combating. It is all very well to say, "Be a teacher, do not translate ; translation is the death of understanding." As teachers go, such as piece of advice may do no great harm, per- haps. But because it is impossible for a scholar who is net master of the resources of his native tongue to improvise a good translation of a passage from an ancient classic, it does not follow that the scholar who is so qualified should be frightened by a big phrase from trying to do his duty. By the way, Mr. Nettleship's account of Haupt concludes with a passage which, as coming from an Oxford professor, is worth listening to. We quote the portion of it which we understand without a word of comment, though it is obviously suggestive of many :—

" The educational system which Haupt's teaching represents is familiar enough in Germany, but imperfectly known in the older English Universities. The theory of professorial instruction, as he and many other distinguished men in Germany have worked it out, supposes that the professor lectures on important subjects, and gives to his classes the best of his work. The strength of the systein lies in the power which it exercises over those finer spirits among the students, whose aptitudes and inclinations draw them to the pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of the philosophic spirit. Its weak- ness is that it fails to touch the ordinary undergraduate. The rieh endowments of Oxford enable us to make full provision for the satis- faction of both requirements. But can it be seriously said that our average social and intellectual tone is seriously favourable to any- thing but the vigorous performance of tutorial ditties and the prepara- tion of candidates for examination P"