15 APRIL 1899, Page 25

A History of Greece. By George Willis Botsford, Ph.D. (Mac-

millan and Co. 6s. 6d. net.)—Dr. Botsford is a teacher at Harvard, and has taken pains to make his book as practically useful as possible. In itself it is not to be preferred to English manuals that we could name, but the abundance of references, the Outlines,'. which supply the general features of the subject in its various divisions, and the " Studies," suggested questions and topics for essays. have been very carefully drawn up, and make a complete apparatus for the use of the teacher or the private student. Dr. Botsford uses a graphic style, and has compressed a great amount of matter into a very moderate compass. Here and there we may fad expressions which might be improved with advantage. " Archaic statues of Hermes" does not give a correct idea of the Hernia which were mutilated on the eve of the expedition to Sicily. Some of the opinions advanced seem to us questionable. He estimates, for instance, the Greek character too highly. "Rational lives in public and private," without qualification, is more than can be said for Greek politics and ethics, full as they were of such deplorable weaknesses. As the author himself says is propos of the betrayal of .1Egina to the Persians, there was no city in which traitors could not be found. Vast as are the obligations of mankind to the Hellenic race, in the science of practical life it compares most unfavourably with the Roman stock.