VI.—1. Jewish Intelligence, from the Year 1846 to the Month of May, 1858, inclusive. 2. Colonial Church Chronicle. May, 1858. 3. Jerusalem: its Missions, Schools, Converts, &c., under Bishop Gobat. By James Graham, late &c. &c. 171 TITLE-PAGE AND INDEX TO VOL. XXXV. ART. I.-1. Scripture and Science not at Variance; with Remarks on the Historical Character, Plenary Inspiration, and Surpassing Importance of the earlier Chapters of Genesis. By John H. Pratt, M.A., Archdeacon of Calcutta ; Author of the 'Mathematical Principles of Mechanical Philosophy.' Second Edition, with new matter. 2. The Testimony of the Rocks; or, Geology in its Bearings on the two Theologies, Natural and Revealed. By Hugh Miller, Author of The 263 &c. &c. ...... 368 ART. V.-1. The Outcast and the Poor of London: a Course of Sermons preached at the Chapel Royal, &c. &c. 408 VI.-Examen Bullæ Ineffabilis institutum et concinnatum juxta regulas sanioris Theologiæ, a Fratre Braulio VII.-1. The Scottish Ecclesiastical Journal. 2. Report of the Speech of the Reverend Gilbert &c. &c.. VIII.-1. The Life and Martyrdom of Savonarola. By 2. Life and Times of Giromalo Savonarola, illus- &c. &c. 431 469 THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER. JULY, 1858. ART. I.-The Choephora of Eschylus: with Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By JOHN CONINGTON, M.A., Professor of Latin, and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand. 1857. THE days have passed when to edit a Greek play was popularly considered an introduction to the Episcopate. On the question whether bishoprics are better administered since the discontinuance of the practice we are not audacious enough to speculate. But, on the cognate question, whether Greek plays are better edited we may perhaps venture to form an opinion. There are, at any rate, those who have quite made up their mind upon the matter, and they occasionally communicate their conclusions in a somewhat lugubrious strain. 'The glories of the Porsonian school,' say these laudatores temporis acti, have passed away. With the worthies of our youth, the 'illustrissimi, præclarissimi, and amplissimi viri of prefaces and 'dedications, the knowledge of the classical languages has 'perished from the earth. The age of critical canons, brilliant ' emendations, neat notes, and learned glossaries has gone by; 'we have fallen upon an age of editorial charlatanism, intolerable prosing and wire-drawn speculation, or mere hand-to-mouth compilations, abstracted from the scrinia of German professors.' We are constrained to admit that there is some reason in these complaints. Editions of classical authors, and all sorts of compendia, and hand-books upon classical subjects, are to be found in every bookseller's shop. We have them in octavo and duodecimo, in English and Latin, in the blotting-paper of Leipsic, and the hot-press of Paternoster-row; but very few of them are constructed with any more exalted object than that of the Jew razor-dealer who imposed upon poor Hodge. They 6 are simply made to sell.' Accomplished editors, ready to edit anything, from Phædrus up to Lycophron, arise at the bidding of Mr. Bohn. Et spes et ratio studiorum in Cæsare tantum.' There are to be found, or were lately to be found, gentlemen anxious to try their hand upon any possible author with rather shorter notice than that required by our distinguished statesman for steering the Channel fleet, or performing the operation for the stone. Now this is a great disadvantage and discouragement to real scholarship. It sets at nought the rule which alone insures the fit treatment of any subject. We ought to write because we have something to say, not to say something be cause we are compelled to write. With the persons of whom we have been speaking, the case is exactly and painfully the reverse. There is no reason why they should prefer one subject to another, or edit one book more than another. They have no utterance to deliver, no special message to declare, no literary partiality to vindicate, no theory to support, no carefully accumulated knowledge to communicate. And therefore what they do write is, for the most part, without life, meaning, or value. Any one who has reflected upon the state and prospects of classical learning in this country, must admit, that there is some danger of its falling into a decadence of this sort. We are so very practical that we are in danger of losing the fruits of practice altogether. We confine scholarship within the limits which certain accredited scholastic examinations require, and thereby impair, if we do not destroy, its highest uses. Learning is, always must be, a slow process; we live too fast to learn. The national spirit breaks out in all we do. Our impatience will no more pause over the difficulties of an author, than wait an hour at a railway station. Whatever be the consequence, we must get on;' get on to the end of our Eschylus or Thucydides, just as much as get on to Paddington or Euston Square. Consequently we use the means which we imagine will enable us to get on, and are careless of everything else. Now, if the object of study was identical with the object of a journey; if the one thing needful was speedy arrival at the terminus, this would be defensible, and indeed most wise. But it is not so. If classical studies are pursued in this way, they are simply stripped of all that renders them worth pursuit. They are emphatically ἐνεργείας ἕνεκα; it is the process of prosecuting them, more even than the results of the process, which gives them value. If the Almighty,' said the philosopher, held Truth in the one hand, and the investigation of Truth in 'the other, I would choose the latter.' The sentiment is a noble one, even though it be expressed in an exaggerated form, and is eminently applicable to the pursuits of scholarship; for 6 |