ART. II.—l. Aioxúλov Xonpógo. The Choëphora of Eschylus, with Notes critical, explanatory, and philological. By the Rev. T. W. Peile, M.A., &c. London. 1840.

2. Bibliotheca Græca, curantibus F. Jacobs et V. C. F. Rost. Eschyli Tragoediarum, Vol. I. Orestea: Sectio 2, Choëphorœ. Edidit Dr. R. H. Klausen. Gothæ et Erfordiæ. 1835. 3. Dissertations on the Eumenides of Eschylus; with the Greek Text and Critical Remarks. From the German of C. O. Mueller. Cambridge. 1835.

4. Eschyli Tragedia. Recensuit et illustravit Joannes Minckwitz. Vol. I. Eumenides. Lipsiæ. 1838.

5. Die Eschylische Trilogie Prometheus, u. s. w., nebst Winken ueber die Trilogie des Eschylus ueberhaupt. Von F. G. Welcker. Darmstadt. 1824.

6. Nachtrag zur Trilogie, u. s. w. Von F. G. Welcker. Frankfurt a. M. 1826.

WE

WE cannot resume the subject of Æschylus and his Trilogies without adverting to the losses which this branch of scholarship has sustained since the publication of our 128th Number. Most of those whom we then alluded to have been already swept from the world. Bishop Butler of Lichfield has gone to his rest, after such severe and protracted sufferings as would have paralysed a less energetic mind. He has gone, full of labours and of honours, though not of years. And yet it is to be feared that he has gone with much of his merit unappreciated. If, however, it be reasonable to suppose that the education of the higher classes, and in particular of the clergy, is at least as important as that of the poor,—and if the silent but most practical reformation which has been at work in our public schools for many years past ever attracts the notice which it deserves, then the time will come when men will feel an interest in tracing the steps of the improvement; and they will hardly fail to give honour due to that scholar who set the first example in remodelling our public education, and gave a stimulus which is now acting on almost all the public schools in the country.*

On the other hand, John Wordsworth has sunk in the prime of life, exhausted by his labours ere their fruits had been given to the public. Non res, sed spes erat:' but how well-grounded and sure a hope, all who know Cambridge can say. We will not add anything of our own to the following sketch from the hand

* It falls to our lot to speak of him only as the head of an important school: for his higher praise we must refer to his worthy pupil, chaplain, and friend, the Rev. R. W. Evans, in the preface to his Bishopric of Souls, a truly precious manual for the young clergyman.

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of his brother, the distinguished master of Harrow School. (After the details of his childhood and boyhood, from his birth in 1805, the account proceeds :)—

'He became a Scholar of Trinity College in 1826, and a Fellow in 1830. He usually resided there till 1833, when he made a tour in France, Switzerland, and Italy. He spent a considerable time at Florence in making an accurate collation of the Medicean MS. of Eschylus; having, before his departure from England, contributed to the Philological Museum a series of critical observations on an edition of that poet. On his return from the continent, in 1834, he was appointed a classical lecturer in his own college; and the lectures which he then delivered will be long remembered by those who heard them, for the remarkable erudition which they displayed. He spared no labour in his philological researches, and he seemed unable to satisfy himself in them before he had exhausted the subject on which he was engaged. To the pursuit of these studies he brought great vigilance of observation, singular acuteness of discrimination, a sound judgment, a tenacious memory, and unwearied industry. He employed these faculties in his intellectual inquiries, and he recorded in his papers the results of his investigations with scrupulous and elaborate accuracy. . . . . He proposed to publish not only the correspondence, but also some of the inedited works of Dr. Bentley, especially his Homer. He was employed at the same time in compiling a Classical Dictionary, which, if an opinion may be formed from the materials which he had amassed for that work, as well as from the portion which he had already executed, and from the plan which he had drawn out of the whole, would have proved a very useful and honourable monument of his indefatigable labour and comprehensive learning. But the work which, as a scholar, he most desired to execute, was an edition of Eschylus. During a period of several years he had directed his attention to that object; and if his life had been prolonged to the present time (Dec. 1841), some of the results of his industry would now, in all probability, have been before the world. For at his death, his observations on the works of that tragedian had reached such a state of maturity, that one of the plays illustrated by him will, it is hoped, ere long appear, to be followed at short intervals by others in succession. He was well conversant with the principal productions of modern literature, especially with the works of the English poets, and was a warm and judicious lover of the fine arts, particularly of painting and engraving. These intellectual endowments were based upon moral qualities of a graver kind. Serious in aspect, tall in person, thoughtful in demeanour, gentle and unobtrusive in manners, he bore in his appearance an air of earnestness. He was one of those who love much rather than many. He wished and strove for the advancement of others rather than his own; he judged no one with severity but himself. He was devotedly attached to the academic institutions to which he belonged, and entertained a dutiful and reverent affection for the Church of England, of which he was a minister, and whose service, had his life been spared, he would have adorned by his learning

and

and his humility. December, 1839.'

He died at Trinity Lodge on the 31st day of

From abroad the news of Klausen's death reached this country some time ago. Of his Agamemnon we formerly spoke; and we were waiting rather impatiently for the continuation of his edition. Meanwhile, he had removed from Bonn to Greifswald, an university in the extreme north of Germany, chiefly distinguished for the richness of its endowments. And he had published two comely octavos on Eneas and the Penates,-characters for whom we have the highest respect: yet even while we believed that the loss of time was not irretrievable, we grudged that he had digressed from what we thought so much more important.

Karl Otfried Mueller of Goettingen, though in more mature years, yet still prematurely, has also fallen a victim to his literary zeal. He had gone to Greece, to complete the researches necessary for the series of his great historical designs; and the ardour with which he applied himself to the examination of the inscriptions at Delphi under the scorching heat of a midsummer sun, produced apoplexy and immediate death; and he sleeps in his own beloved Athens, inter silvas Academi.† Naeke too is gone. Dissen's death was mentioned before. But it is useless to extend the melancholy catalogue: the above names are the most connected with our present subject.

Hermann, however, still survives, standing out like some antediluvian peak among the débris of the deluge; and two years ago a jubilee was held at Leipzig to celebrate the fiftieth year of his doctorate, which seems pretty nearly to have coincided with that of our own distinguished countryman, Dr. Routh, president of Magdalen College. Many and various were the compliments which Germany racked its brains to pay to old Godfrey.' Since that time he dips his pen in a splendid silver inkstand, the offering of the printers whose presses he has kept at work for more than half a century. He smokes (eternally of course) from a pipe

* Preface to Bentley's Correspondence,' (Lond. 1841) pp. xvi.-xix. †This admirable scholar was born at Brigg in Silesia, 1797, where his father, we believe, was the pastor. His first schoolmaster was Lotheisen; and in 1813 he went to Breslau to study under Heindorf and Schneider. From thence he removed in 1815 to Berlin, where he placed himself under Boeckh and Buttmann; and in 1817 was appointed to the Magdalenum at Breslau. In 1819 he was raised, on the recommendation of Boeckh and Heeren, to the chair of archæology at Goettingen, where he continued, except for short intervals, until the end of his life. Of the long (yet incomplete) list of his works, given in the Revue Analytique of M. E. Miller (to which we are indebted for the above information) the most important are:-1. The Dorians, 1824: translated by Messrs. Tufnell and Lewis, in 2 vols. 8vo. 2. Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie, 1825. 3. Die Etrusker, 1828. 4. Archaeologie der Kunst, 1830. 5. Aeschyli Eumenides, 1833 (translated). 6. History of Greek Literature, written for, and publishing by, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1840, &c.

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of the same material. He snuffs from a gold box, the present of his sovereign; and as for congratulatory addresses, odes, idyls, &c., they were of course far beyond all reading or reckoning. It seemed as though the literature of universal Germany had vied in furnishing him with a collection of polyglot pipe-lighters. The most gratifying of the presents was doubtless the King of Saxony's handsome donation to enable his son to travel; and the most honourable of the addresses was that which emanated from the German philologers, the incorporated accidence, syntax, and prosody of Germany, assembled (as it were in one volume) after the manner of a British Association. Ritter F. Jacobs (if we remember right) held the pen in the name of all these wise men of Gotha; and among the choicest flowers of classical compliment dexterously insinuated a harmless yet pointed allusion to the edition of Eschylus, which has been in the paulo post futurum since the last century, by quoting unus qui nobis cunctando restitues rem.' We hope that Hermann will remember that other qualities besides cunctatio go to the making of a Fabius, lest impatient scholars cap Jacobs' quotation with Dilator, spe longus,' &c.

We

It is a practical question of considerable importance to all professors, editors, and sedentary reviewers, how Hermann has been preserved to such a green and vigorous old age. have, in consequence, made every possible inquiry, and have to report that his friends attribute it in no slight degree to his study of some of Xenophon's minor treatises, viz. de Re Equestri, and Magister Equitum, if not also de Venatione. Many of our readers may remember a dissertation in the first volume of his Opuscula, de Verbis quibus Græci incessum equorum indicant.' It is written not only con scienza but con amore; and we believe that he has never given up the practical study of the subject. Thus far indeed our own universities show that a vast number of our philological aspirants are adopting the same course—whether from the example of the great professor, or from an intuitive perception of the truth of the principle, we cannot pretend to say. But, if we are not misinformed, Hermann goes a step beyond them; like Achilles, whose spear could heal the wounds it inflicted, when Hermann has dirtied his horse, he can clean him again. If any of the said aspirants find in the day of trial that, notwithstanding all their devoted practice, they are 'plucked in Xenophon,' let them consider whether their failure may not be attributed to their having neglected this part of the charm.

Moreover, on this side of the channel, Mr. Peile is alive and lively—at least the evidence of his vitality is before us in the substantial form of a second volume, announced as No. II. of the

Trilogy,

Trilogy, and therefore, we hope, surely portending No. III. We say this in all sincerity, though we are sorry to observe that he looks upon us as his enemies. But mortal men will complain of criticism. We regret that we found it necessary to say some things (they were but few) which we cannot honestly retract because they displease Mr. Peile. Our objections to his plan, and in some instances to the taste in which he had executed it, were openly and fairly stated. But we spoke of him in the terms which his distinction as a scholar deserved; as one who could rub off these excrescences, if their real nature was exhibited. And therefore we alluded to them in such a tone as seemed likely to make him see them as they were:-certainly not captiously or malignantly. And, however Mr. Peile may dislike it, it is from the above-named article that his publisher has drawn the recommendation with which he advertises Mr. Peile's Agamemnon. If Klausen's eccentricities had been curable by any influence of ours, we should have taken the same course with him; but we gave up his minor faults as beyond our medica manus. Mr. Peile's complaint against us is, in fact, that we did not treat him as incorrigible, or not worth amendment; and to this we plead guilty.

re

However, he is right, and we were wrong, after all;—he is incorrigible! Like a true knight-errant, he will maintain most stoutly those precise points which we consider most defenceless; in some things inisunderstanding and misrepresenting us; in others setting us at defiance. Now this is an act of downright rebellion, deserving of exemplary punishment. But even viewers have their melting moods; and this is one of ours; and there is a bonhommie about Mr. Peile which we not only respect, but heartily like; so we shall not enter into further controversy with him-not from fear of damaging our knight's smart surcoat,' though he endeavours to give check to our knight' with his bishop: for, surcoats apart, his thinness of skin makes him less formidable as an antagonist than he would otherwise be; but because, having once for all made our protest against certain principles, it would be unedifying and uninteresting, if not unfriendly, to continue a war which must dwindle into petty criticism. He must not, therefore, think that we are insensible to the value of his labours if we express our regret at his perversity in multiplying his commentary as his text diminishes; and with the remark that he does not appear to have used Mueller's criticism on Klausen's Choëphoro, or Hermann's hypercriticism * on that, we shake hands with Mr. Peile, and, while we take our

*For the Germans allow Review upon Review, which, of course, seems to us as thoroughly false heraldry as colour upon colour.

way,