Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

the past, they will doubtless tend to be archeological where a town is modern and industrial they will be treated to some extent from the point of view of the sociologist. But archeology and sociology alike are only to be used as brushes in the portrait painter's box. Where he requires their aid for the purposes of his picture, he will use them, but the end at which he is aiming is neither archeology nor sociology, but portrait painting. As you can only know a family by learning to know its members, so for a true knowledge of a country is REVIEWS. EURIPIDES THE HUMAN. No thinking man will be inclined to envy the general editors of the popular handbooks that are now pouring into the market. In arranging for the volumes to be written they have to pick out a capable scholar, who knows all that is to be known about a given subject, and then ask him to exercise heroic self-denial and to throw overboard as mere lumber the mass of facts collected by him with the loving patience of life-long research, to refrain from even a mention of theories which he regards as dangerous heresies calling for instant refutation, and be content with watering down his knowledge and presenting it to the public in a palatable form. 1 he comparatively small number of failures is a striking testimony, both to the discriminating judgment of the architects of these series, and to the human quality and literary gifts of the authors concerned. To write an elementary manual of this kind is no easy task; British scholarship has every reason to hold its head up high, when so many can be found who combine profound learning with an easy style and a right appreciation of how much detail the average layman can digest. In estimating the value of any single volume in an avowedly popular series it is not enough to enquire whether the book is in itself good or bad applying a remark made in a recent review (The New Statesman, Nov. 15) of a similar manual we must ask whether it is extremely compressed and calls for previous knowledge however good the book may be, a plain yes in answer to the above question is of itself enough to condemn it as a member of the Home University Library and other collections of the kind and this verdict must undoubtedly be passed on not a few that have been included in them There are indeed some that read like a publisher's catalogue, and petrify the will even of the serious scholar who wishes to make himself acquainted with some branch of learning, which has not yet come within his range. We do not demand that the book should be so simple that a child can use it but we do expect it to be interesting and intelligible to an educated person of average mental capacity, who has no special knowledge of the matter discussed. It is not a question of writing down to the people but of lucid interpretation to non-specialists. Many of the writers have been extraordinarily "Euripides and his Age"; by Gilbert Murray, LL.D.. D.Litt., FJBA, Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford. Williams and Norgate, Home University Library. U. it necessary to make the acquaintance of her towns individually. It is only through the parts that we can arrive at a just estimate of the whole. It is therefore hoped that these portracts will in some way be useful as sketches from which we can paint our mental panoramas-that by knowing a little more of the towns of Wales we may be nearer to understanding the character and significance of Wales herself. R. F. W. successfulin writing, scholarship, originality and the best kind of popular interpretation. We should like to select for special mention Rome, by W. Warde Fowler, The Dawn of History by J. L. Myres, Miss J. E. Harrison's entrancing volume on Ancient Ritual and Art in The flome University Library, and. in other series, Mrs. Adam's Plato (Cambridge Manuals) Miigge's Nietzsche and Ferrers Howell's Dante (People's Books), books every one of which appeals to the specialist and should be a lasting joy to the general reader for whom they are primarily composed. In the little volume before us Professor Gilbert Murray intro- duces us to the Athenians of the fifth century, B.C., and gives us a vivid picture of their intellectual life, a life that is still full of meaning for the men and women of to-day. The Greek language is essentially an object of study for the specialist and the few but the literature, life and thought of the ancient Greeks have ever a new message for the many, and still breathe a living spirit that can and will profoundly affect our national life and be of lasting help to the thinkers and workers of this age. It is not without reason that these old classics have been called the books that never grow old they go to the very root of matters that can themselves never grow old. We turn to the thinkers of Greece and find them grappling with the perplexing problems that confront us to-day. and see them with calm and deliberate reason sifting what are still the great issues of life and death. Speculations upon the life to come, the conflict between imperialism and democracy, civic strife and international arbitration, the Greeks have faced them all and are ready with words of advice for him who will hear; and their wisdom is now interpreted to the masses of this country by men of learning, who are the selves in close touch with the vital questions of the age. In translations, commentaries and handbooks the treasures of Greece are now brought within easy reach of the many in a way that has never been surpassed. Of this the publishers' lists afford sufficient proof; series like The Home University Library and The People's Books give a prominent place to Greek philo- sophy and history, and Greek plays are winning a great vogue on the stage. It has been abundantly proved that if adequately staged and well translated and acted they can attract and hold a large audience; we may mention the successful performances of Professor Murray's versions of Euripides (not to speak of their enormous sale in book form), and the remarkable popularity of M. Mounet-Sully as King Oedipw of Sophocles which some