ew, short, and concise, it is well. But who has not suffered under the
tedious and tiresome verbosity of editors? The writer possesses an
edition of Pope in which page after page contains two lines of the poet
and thirty-four lines of editor. Reed's Shakespeare (1813) frequently
contains a solitary line of text with forty of notes. Fortunately,
however, such things are now numbered with the past.

As to our editions of the Greek and Latin Classics, whether we can read
them in the original tongue or whether we must have recourse to
translations, we have already debated. But without wishing to discourage
the book-lover in any possible way from making (or renewing, as the case
may be) acquaintance with these great writers, it must be borne in mind
that few indeed are the translations from any language that are wholly in
the spirit of the original. In recommending the following translations of
some of the greater world-classics, literary and animate qualities have
been had in view no less than scholarly translation.

Aeschylus and Sophocles have been admirably rendered in English verse by
Mr. E. D. A. Morshead. Of the first, 'The House of Atreus' (being the
'Agamemnon,' 'Libation-Bearers,' and 'Furies') was first published by him
in 1881, an octavo volume which was reprinted in 1890 and 1901. 'The
Suppliant Maidens,' 'The Persians,' 'The Seven against Thebes,' and
'Prometheus Bound' were collected in one octavo volume in 1908. His
version of Sophocles' 'Oedipus the King' was published in 1885, while the
'Ajax' and 'Electra' were printed in prose, 1895.

The Plays of Aristophanes are, perhaps, best known to English readers by
Hookham Frere's excellent translations. His first volume, containing the
'Acharnians,' the 'Knights,' and the 'Birds,' was originally printed at
Malta in 1839, in which year a similar quarto volume containing the
'Frogs' was also issued. But there are several later editions of both
these volumes, and almost any bookseller can provide one. In addition to
these plays, the 'Clouds' and the 'Wasps' were included in Thomas
Mitchell's version first published in two octavo volumes dated 1820 and
1822. But we may have a complete set of the eleven plays which have come
down to us, in Mr. B. B. Rogers' scholarly translation in verse. This
beautiful edition in eleven small quarto volumes was published by Messrs.
George Bell and Sons between 1902 and 1916, and has the Greek and English
on opposite pages. For the p