Page:Essays in miniature.djvu/54

 50 A glance at the notes themselves is very discouraging:

"P. 10, l. 14, directed, A to E, G; direct, F, H to L.

"P. 10, l. 16, rectified, A to I; rectifie, J, K, L.

"P. 10, l. 28, consist, A to J; resist, K, L."

Reading with such helps as these becomes a literary nightmare:

"P. 8, l. 8, distinguished] Chapman (R) and Gardiner (W) read 'being distinguished.'

"P. 8, l. 8, distinguished not only] Wilkin (T) read 'not only distinguished.'"

And this is weirder still:

"P. 59, l. 4, antimetathesis, C to M; antanaclasis, A, B; transposition of words, N, O."

It may easily be surmised that eighty-eight pages of such concentrated and deadly erudition weigh very heavily on the unscholarly soul. We are reminded forcibly of the impatience manifested by Mr. E. S. Dallas, in The Gay Science, over Porson's notes on Euripides, from which he had hoped so much and gleaned so little; which were all about words and less