Theocritus. Donut) recensuit Christophorus Wordsworth, S.T.P., Episcopus Lincolniensis. (Daighton and
Bell ; Bell and Sons.)—It is almost a surprise—so are things changed since the year of grace 1800 —to find a Bishop editing a Greek classic. And indeed Bishop Words- worth is reproducing, with some alteration and addition, a work brought out thirty-three years ago. We can only wish that the eight were more common. "Greek-play bishops" were not very efficient, but the pendulum has swung too far the other way, and we should be glad to see our prelates somewhat less absorbed in ecclesiastical affairs. The Bench is not deficient in learning. There are not a few prelates who may be classed, if not actually matched with the Bishop of Lincoln, but it is the whole set of thought that draws them wholly away from such studies. Dr. Wordsworth is as busy as any of his brethren, yet he finds time for renewing old studies. That the edition is a work of genuine scholarship we need hardly say. It is not exactly the scholarship that finds favour in these days. That keeps its regards strictly fixed on academical purposes, and holds that the elaborate learning of other days does not pay. Any one but a practised scholar might, indeed, fairly complain that Dr. Words- worth's notes are but a scanty help. Those who do not need such help will find it a really valuable work. The typography is peculiarly pleasing, a quality not always to be observed in English-printed Greek books. We cannot refrain from noticing the ingenious morals which the Bishop, in his new preface, draws from his study of Theocritus, and how he slays with a double shot the worshippers of art and the prophets of materialism. Theocritus, he says, is sometimes very offensive to any modest mind, and yet how elegant a poet he is ! If so, "baud facile anrem iis prrebebimus, qui hodie noble polliaentur et persuader° consists's, nos a vitiorum foeditate immune' fore, et virtatibusmoralibus inclareseere posse, si modo nos at populares nostros secularibus studiis at artibus elegantioribus, at philosophies placitis, et literarum humani- ortun cultures totes mancipemus." And again, who does not prefer the life of Theocritus's shepherds, with their simple, joyous life, to that " illorum plailosophornm, qui, post splendorem divini aspeottle in Verbo Veritatis revelatum, in obscurti cialigine errare contenti aunt, et in for- midoloso at inhospitali barathro serum nataralium et causarnm secun- darum, a divine intellecta, amore, potentia conditoris, qui, ut cum Newton° nostro loquar, omnia agit, non ut anima mundi, sad uni- versorum Dominus, lenge lateque remotaram "?
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