Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), May 10, 1845, vol. 1, no. 19, p. ???-???

[page 295:]

REVIEWS.

THE FIRST THREE BOOKS OF HOMER’S ILIAD, according to the Ordidinary [[Ordinary]] Text, and also with the restoration of the Digamma, to which are appended English Notes, critical and explanatory, a Metrical Index, and Homer's Glossary. By Charles Anthon, L.L. D.. Jay Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages in Columbia College, New York, and Rector of the Grammar School. New York: Harper & Brothers.

THIS is one of the series of “School and College Classics” which have attracted so general an attention, first, from their comprehensiveness, and admirable adaptation to their objects, and, secondly from their punctilious accuracy and beauty of typographical execution. We have seen richer, gaudier, but never!nom truly beautiful books. The Greek text, in this Homer, with the frequent digammas, is certainly the most graceful and picturesque specimen of printing we ever beheld.

The volume contains all of the Iliad which is usually read at school, as preparatory to a collegiate course — sufficient to furnish the student with the principles of Homeric translation and analysis. The text is, in the main, that of Spitzner, which is now generally regarded as the best; — although on some occasions, alterations have been adopted, and the reasons given in a note. Besides the regular text of Spitzner, there is that of Richard Payne Knight, with the digamma restored according to his views. In fact, it is by no means improbable that this secondary text is at least a close approximation to the ancient orthography of Homer — although many discrepancies might be pointed out, going to show that in many cases the learned commentator could not have been otherwise than wrong in his conjectures. The work of Knight is extremely rare in this country, and even as a mere matter of curious speculation, Dr. Anthon has rendered a public service by introducing the restorations in question.

The commentary, as in all this series of classics, is peculiarly full and explicit — proceeding on the sole ground which is admissible in matters of scholastic instruction — the ground that the scholar is absolutely ignorant, and has need of information at all points, however seemingly trivial. No error is more fatal in tuition, than that of taking it for granted that the student kncws any thing at all. The materials of the Notes are derived, chiefly, from Wolf, Heyne, Buttman, Nagelsbach, and Stadelmann, and the Commentary includes every thing that is really valuable in the works of these eminent scholars. The Glossary is separated from the Notes, — a very judicious arrangement — and contains a great deal of novel information in regard to the parsing of the Homeric Greek. It is distinguished, also, from every Homeric Lexicon which has preceded it (in English) by its introduction and application to the Homeric text, of the Sanscrit and Linguistic Etymologies: — an Index to the Glossary is subjoined. The Metrical Index has been constructed with especial reference to the doctrine of the digamma and its bearing upon the Homeric versification.

Upon the whole, this edition of Homer is not only one of the most valuable of the series, but one of the most important additions to classical literature which this country at any other has produced.