Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/460

 iSoticts of tNTcfco publications. Dictionary of Greetl and Roman Antiquities, edited by William Smith, LL.D. 2tid edition, improved and enlarged. There are three worlds open to the investigations of the archaeologist; three fields of knowledge, in each of which the archfeological student requires the help of a dictionary of antiquities. The first is the clas- sical world of Greece and Rome ; the second, the Oriental world ; the third, the medieval world of the Teutonic and Celtic nations, whose history, though still living, is in its origin so completely connected with the past, as to be fairly reckoned amongst the " antiqviities" of the human race. Of these several spheres, the first has always had the advantage, not only in the greater research which has been expended upon it, but in the more compendious methods which have been adopted to place it within the reach of the student. Oriental archseology has been rendered popular only through the medium of its connexion with the Scrijitures, in which aspect however it must be acknowledged that perhaps some of its most essential points have been sufficiently brought forward ; and with a few additions " Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature" might fairly be used as a lexicon of eastern antiquities. The Medieval world has been less fortunate, and the complaint uttered six years ago from the chair of Modern History at Oxford is still true, that its peculiar antiquities have not found a Lempriere, an Ainsworth, or an Adams ; still less any work corresponding either in facility of access, or excellence of execution, to the admirable Lexicon of Greek and Roman Antiquities, which is now before us in the improved and en- larged state of its second edition. To represent the value of this work to classical students is a task which hardly belongs to the province of a Journal devoted chiefly to medieval archaBology. Those only who in their early years have toiled through the vague and confused volumes of Adams and Potter, can fairly appreciate the services conferred upon Greek and Roman antiquities in this country, by the labours of William Smith and Leonhard Schmitz. Nor is the credit due to the Editor diminished by the obvious necessity of such a work to meet the increased requirements of the age. What is every one's business is no one's, and it is not every one who would have had the patience and skill to embody with so much success the joint efforts of England and Germany, — the learning of the established Universities, and of their humbler rivals in other spheres ; not to speak of the vast proportion of articles contributed to the work by Dr. Smith himself.