the high-water mark of
classical translation, has given us the following reminders: "An English
translation ought to be idiomatic and interesting, not only to the
scholar, but also to the unlearned reader. It should read as an original
work, and should also be the most faithful transcript which can be made
of the language from which the translation is taken, consistently with
the first requirement of all, that it be English. The excellence of a
translation will consist, not merely in the faithful rendering of words,
or in the composition of a sentence only, or yet of a single paragraph,
but in the colour and style of the whole work."

These tests may be safely applied to the work of Mr. Dakyns. An
accomplished Greek scholar, for many years a careful and sympathetic
student of Xenophon, and possessing a rare mastery of English idiom,
he was unusually well equipped for the work of a translator. And
his version will, as I venture to think, be found to satisfy those
requirements of an effective translation which Professor Jowett laid
down. It is faithful to the tone and spirit of the original, and it has
the literary quality of a good piece of original English writing. For
these and other reasons it should prove attractive and interesting
reading for the average Englishman.

Xenophon, it must be admitted, is not, like Plato, Thucydides, or
Demosthenes, one of the greatest of Greek writers, but there are several
considerations which should commend him to the general reader. He is
more representative of the type of man whom the ordinary Englishman
specially admires and respects, than any other of the Greek authors
usually read.

An Athenian of good social position, endowed with a gift of eloquence
and of literary style, a pupil of Socrates, a distinguished soldier,
an historian, an essayist, a sportsman, and a lover of the country, he
represents a type of country gentleman greatly honoured in English life,
and this should ensure a favourable reception for one of his chief works
admirably rendered into idiomatic English. And the substance of the
_Cyropaedia_, which is in fact a political romance, describing the
education of the ideal ruler, trained to rule as a benevolent despot
over his admiring and willing subjects, should add a further element of
enjoyment for the reader of this famous book in its English garb.

J. HEREFORD.

EDITOR'S NOTE

In preparing