Demosthenes' Oration on the Crown. By P. P. Simpson, B.A.
(Thornton, Oxford.)—This is a handsome edition of the text, with translation opposite and notes at the foot of the page. Of the trans- lation, Mr. Simpson says that "it is intended to show what Demo- sthenes said, not how well ho said it.' Its aim is "purely oommenta- torial," and we believe that this aim is fully attained. It differs alike from loam paraphrase on the one hand, and on the other from those baldly literal versions which, by the seductive promise of close fidelity to the text, beguile the unhappy pass-man to his destruction, and make impossible a task which was at first only difficult. The general reader is supplied with a speech which can bo road, and might conceivably bo spoken ; while the young student may got most valuable hints, by observing closely how the structure of the original is dealt with. We will take as a specimen part of the sen- tence of twentpfenr linos, beginning in see. 25S :—" I call upon you, the boaster, who void your rheum upon the rest of the world, to inquire, in comparison with my fortune, what kind of fortune you thave enjoyed. A fortune thanks to which, as a child, you were bred amid plentiful lack of moans, sitting in company with your father as an attendant at the school, grinding the ink and sponging the benches, and sweeping the schoolroom, performing the °filo() of a menial, not of a freeborn child I A fortune thanks to which, when you became a man, you read the books to your mother during her initiations, and helped her in the rest of her mummeries ! By night you clothed the novices in fawn-skins, and drenched them from the mixing-bowl, and purified them and rubbed them down with clay and bran ; and, as you raised them up, after the puri- fication, bade them say, ' I have escaped the evil, I have found the better way,' boasting that no one hitherto raised the sacrificial scroam so splendidly !" In the celebrated conclusion, which has so much exercised translators, we think that Mr. Simpson has been more successful than either Lord Brougham or C, R. Kennedy :—" Forbid it, forbid it, all ye Powers of Heaven, that any among you bow his sovereign sanction to this. Rather—dare wo hope so mach—we would pray you to implant, even in these men, a measure of better souse and better feeling. But if it be true that they are past heal- ing, then take them by themselves, and fling them to utter and early destruction, bo it on land or sea, and vouchsafe to the remnant of us the speediest deliverance from the fears that hang above us, and a salvation that shall stand sure." The notes, mainly grammatical, contain little that is striking, but give in short compass much help towards the appreciation of Greek idiom, as in " /20epa nal °air, little or nothing," " imacre, to a certain quarter," "taxa; rolirou, so long, and no longer ;" " othae, on that condition only." Their bulk is lessened by the use made of the index in illustrating words specially important. The introduction gives a very clear sketch of Athenian history, from the close of the Peloponnesian War to the battle of Chaeronea.
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