Page images
PDF
EPUB

study of the Old Testament, some of the fruits of which have appeared in his Introduction to the Old Testament, his Commentaries on Ezekiel, Daniel, etc. In connection with his exposition of Ezekiel, that of Hitzig, before mentioned, may be profitably used.

6. Stuart on Daniel. The long promised commentary of Prof. Stuart on Daniel is passing rapidly through the press. It will be comprised in one volume, and will be anticipated with much satisfaction by the student of the prophecies.

7. Baur on Amos. "Der Prophet Amos, erklärt von Dr. Gustav Baur, Giessen, 1847, pp. 452," is one of the most copious and exhaustive expositions which we possess. The author is now, we believe, professor of

"In

theology at Giessen, and is not to be confounded with the famous Dr. von Baur of Tübingen. An Introduction of 162 pages discusses the nature of prophecy, its historical development, the personal relations of Amos, his times and contemporaries, style, state and history of the text, commentaries upon the prophet, etc. Then succeed a translation, the commentary, and two indexes. The author speaks of having been employed on his labor half of Horace's nine years, and of having several times handled the prophet, in various aspects, in exegetical lectures. He also speaks of having paid particular attention to the Rabbinical commentators. this labor," he says, "the conviction has fastened itself on me anew, that to the dividing and perplexing question, which at present is often propounded with great confidence: "Free science or firm Christian faith?" the only true answer is: "Free science and firm Christian faith." "The severest historical investigation, even in apparently external and small matters, shows ever more clearly, how all things must serve to prepare the way of the Lord." The author appears to have performed his work with great conscientiousness and ability. It will be found eminently useful for the discussion of the difficult passages in this prophet, and for the care with which many words and phrases are historically and philologically investigated. At the same time, on some of the less difficult passages, it is unnecessarily prolix.

66

8. Delitzsch on Habakkuk. "Der prophet Habakkuk. Ausgelegt von Franz Delitzsch, Leipzig, K. Tauchnitz, 1833, pp. 208." This belongs to an Exegetical Manual of the Prophets of the Old Testament," by Delitzsch, now professor in the university of Rostock, and Paul Caspari, professor in the university at Christiania. The only volumes yet published are this by Delitzsch, and one on Obadiah, 2d edition, and part of an Introduction to Isaiah, both by Caspari. These commentators are Leipsic scholars and decidedly evangelical. Delitzsch has written a History of Hebrew Poetry, and Caspari an Arabic Grammar. The Commentary on Habakkuk is beautifully printed in a thin octavo, crowded with matter. The price is about $1. An Introduction considers at length the

1850.]

Notices of New Publications.

387 following topics: name of the prophet, biographical relations, times of the prophet, and list of commentators. Then follow the translation, a copious commentary, and an appendix. The author, we believe, is of Hebrew descent. He has made extensive and often very happy use of the Jewish expositors. As a specimen of a thoroughly philological, historical, exhaustive, and evangelical commentary, it is worthy of the highest commendation.

We may subjoin in our next No. some remarks on the New Testament

commentators.

ARTICLE IX.

NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

I. THE GORGIAS OF PLATO.1

Ir is a fortunate circumstance for the influence of classical education in our country, that such a book as Plato's Gorgias should be introduced into our college courses. It is well in our teachers to deviate from the beaten path of the English schools and universities, and to choose from the abounding treasures of ancient wisdom, such portions as are best suited to our own peculiar condition and our educational wants. For instance, in our country, as in the republics of Greece, our young men need to be guarded against the specious sophistries of expediency in politics, of pleasure in morals, and of skepticism in religion. We have among us treacherous guides in the conduct of national affairs, false teachers in philosophy and morals, who tempt the passions, as did the Sophists of old, by proclaiming the sovereignty of the instincts, and doubters and deniers, who are doing their best, under cover of a deceptive theological science, to undermine the foundations of Christian faith. The two former are exactly analogous to the political and sophistical lecturers of ancient Greece; and the latter are strikingly like them in the leading features of their character, and in the general principles upon which they proceed.

The Gorgias of Plato meets all these assailants, except the special foes of Christianity, better perhaps than any other ancient or modern work. Nothing in antiquity rises to an elevation so nearly approaching that of Christianity. In the reasoning of Socrates on justice, temperance, and judgment to come, we almost seem to hear an apostle preach; and we cannot help imagining to ourselves, with what joy so earnest a soul would

The Gorgias of Plato: chiefly according to Stallbaum's text; with notes. By T. D. Woolsey. Cambridge: James Munroe & Co. New edition. 1848.

have listened, had he been so permitted, to the sanctions and completions which Revelation would have given to the great truths he had partially grappled by the force of reason exalted by a rational faith and made clear by purity of life.

Mr. Woolsey's new edition of this noble work, we have no hesitation in saying, has no superior. The text is critically prepared, and the commentary, in which he has combined the results of his own study with those of the ablest European critics, is extremely well suited to develop the spirit and meaning of the author. The Introduction is a valuable and able analysis of the work. It was not our intention to enter into any critical discussion, but merely to call attention to the new edition.

II. THE PROMETHEUS AND AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS.] Of late years the study of Aeschylus has made great progress among scholars. Notwithstanding the imperfect condition of the text in most of his remaining pieces, the labors of classical critics have been so far successful that his poetical character stands as clearly unfolded as that of any of his great contemporaries or successors. Its majestic outlines have been carefully and ingeniously traced; its lofty spirit has, in a great measure, been freed from the obscurities which once surrounded it; and now, one at least of the grand dramas of the hero-poet of Marathon, forms a part of every good classical course of study in our colleges.

Not only has the Greek text been the subject of indefatigable study, but translations have been repeatedly made of all his principal pieces into the modern languages. The Prometheus Bound and the Agamemnon have been more frequently attempted than any others, particularly by English scholars, probably not only on account of their superior merits in conception and execution the unsurpassed grandeur of their poetry, and the wonderful power of their style, but also on account of a peculiar relation they sustain to English poetry - the Prometheus bearing a strong resemblance to Milton's Satan, and the character of Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon suggesting many interesting analogies with Shakspeare's Lady Macbeth.

The illustrative literature of these two plays forms, at present, no inconsiderable library. To say nothing of the numerous works which have come from the German press, the number of editions and translations, both of the Prometheus and the Agamemnon, especially of the latter, is very considerable. Within the last few years, some eight or ten attempts have been made, by English writers, to transfer these great master works of Attic genius to the mother tongue. These have been attended with variThe Prometheus and Agamemnon of Aeschylus: Translated into English Verse: By Henry William Herbert, Cambridge, 1849.

1850.]

Herbert's Translation of Aeschylus.

389

ous degrees of success, all respectable and some of distinguished excellence. Of the Prometheus, the most distinguished is perhaps that by the poetess Miss Barrett. Of the Agamemnon, by far the best, previously we mean to that placed at the head of this notice, is the poetical translation by Mr. Symmons. In our country, these two plays have also been much studied. Both have been published in the original, with English commentaries, and both have been translated - the Prometheus twice and the Agamemnon once. Of all the translations which have yet appeared in English, Mr. Herbert's, recently published from the university press in our American Cambridge, is by far the best. Mr. Herbert is a gentleman of thorough classical education, known for many years as an able writer, long practised both in prose and poetry. Among his most distinguished productions, showing at once his genius and his learning, we may mention his classical romance, entitled the Roman Traitor, in which a bold, and we think a successful attempt is made to paint the times in which the gigantic plot of Catiline was formed, and the noble character of Cicero is the chief figure in the foreground. Mr Herbert, therefore, addressed himself to the task of rendering the lofty spirit of Aeschylus into English, thoroughly prepared for the difficulty of the work. How great that difficulty is, need not be said to any classical scholar; how admirably this difficulty has been overmatched in the volume before us, will be seen by any one who will take the trouble to compare a page or two with the original text. Mr. Herbert is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the elder English writers. His style is uncorrupted by any of the meretricious neologians of the day. No man of his age has written more for the periodical journals, and for the daily consumption of an omnivorous reading public that many-headed helluo librorum for whose insatiable appetite so many geese are plucked, and so many iron pens are busily at work. But his style has come out from all these perverting influences as chaste as the Lady passed amidst the rabble rout of Comus. Milton, Shakspeare, and the English Bible are the triple fountain from which the clear stream of his poetic language flows. Hence the unapproached felicity with which the solemn grandeur of Aeschylus is reproduced; the wonderful aptness with which each shade of Aeschylean thought is painted in the copy. We seem to read, not a translation, but an original work of some mighty master of the elder ages: and yet the English runs as closely with the words of the Greek as the version of the most toilsome interpreter in a College lecture room. In the poetic forms which Mr. Herbert has adopted, he shows the nice taste and tact of an artist. The iambic trimeters are rendered into the English ten-syllable blank-verse - not only the rhythm of epic poetry, but fixed forever by the great masters of the drama, as the form for tragic dialogue. The anapaestic measures are given

--

in corresponding English anapaests, and the more complicated lyrical movements, whose rhythmical effect, in the original, depended upon a certain musical adaptation which we have forever lost, and which without that, are but faintly appreciable, he has wisely given in recognized English lyrical measures. In this respect, we think Mr. Herbert has been truer to the antique spirit than any of the German translators, who have undertaken the Sisyphean toil, as Menzel calls it, of rolling the rough rune-stone of German poetry up the Grecian Parnassus, by reproducing the original, syllable by syllable and beat by beat.

We do not always agree with Mr. Herbert, in his interpretation of doubtful passages, as for instance where, (l. 444 of his version, l. 382 in Klausen's text) he renders Φάσμα δόξει δόμων ανάσσειν, Ghostlike through his house he stalks. We think the words refer to Helen, and we should translate them, her phantom shall seem to rule the house. To our minds this is more poetical, and more in harmony with the exquisite lines, which fol♥ low immediately after, describing the "dream-appearing visions, bringing an empty joy," and contrasting, as it were while introducing the haunting imagination of her being present still by day. We readily admit, however, Sir Roger de Coverley's formula that "a great deal may be said on both sides."

We trust Mr. Herbert will go on and finish the task he has so ably begun. If he does, he will make a permanent contribution to our literature, and erect a monument of his own learning and genius, which will stand the test of criticism and time.

III. BAHR ON SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.!

This book is a sequel to an earlier work of the same author on the symbolic character of the Mosaic ritual. (Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus. 2Bde. 1837. 9.) Its design is to show the religious significancy of Solomon's temple, in its architectural plan and various furniture. The description which is given in the Bible of the outward appearance of the temple is too meagre to allow of any attempt to present a drawing of it. On the contrary the description of the interior is very minute and leaves scarcely anything to be desired. The outward form, however, a precise knowledge of which is indispensable to the artist who would give us a picture of the temple, is of comparatively little importance as it respects its religious significancy. The house was simply rectilinear in its form,

[ocr errors]

Der Salomonische Temple mit Berücksichtigung seines verhältnisses zur heiligen Architectur überhaupt. (The Solomonic Temple considered in its relation to sacred Architecture generally). Von Dr. Carl. Chr. W. F. Bähr. 8vo. Carlsruhe 1848 pp. 352.

« PreviousContinue »