Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/464

 444 Reviews.

the return from the Exile. " Men are asking," he tells us, " was there ever a return ? The answer is becoming possible, and so far it is clearly in the negative." It is strange that Professor Duff and the school to which he belongs cannot see that those outside it require more solid evidence for the reversal of our traditional history than the " inner consciousness " or dogmatic pronounce- ment of the modern critic. We cannot draw historical conclusions from philology, whose province lies elsewhere, and " critical tact" is convincing only to the critic himself

The series of which Professor Duffs volume forms part was introduced by a volume by myself, and I embrace the present opportunity to warn readers against putting their trust in the text of it. It was published without my having seen a single proof, the result being that it teems with misprints. Some of them are so obvious that every reader can correct them for himself; others unfortunately are such as need a knowledge of Assyriology for their detection. Even the one note contributed by the editor contains a printer's error.

A. H. Sayce.

SoHRAB AND RusTEM : the Epic Theme of a Combat between Father and Son. A Study of its Genesis and Use in Literature and Popular Tradition. By Murray Anthony Potter, A.M. London: David Nutt. 1902.

In this scholarly book, which in its original form was a doctorate thesis accepted by the authorities of Harvard University, Mr. Potter discusses a group of folktales of which one form is familiar to English readers in the delightful verses of Matthew Arnold. The skeleton of the tale describes how " a man departs from home, in war service, in search of adventure or for purposes of trade, leaving behind him a wife and son, perhaps unborn, or already quite a lad. He is absent for years. The boy grows up, and for some reason or other seeks his father, or the latter may finally return. In either case the two meet and, through lack of recognition, fight. The outcome may be either tragic or happy. In the former case the relationship is not discovered till one of the two combatants is mortally wounded. In the latter the contest is brought to a close by explanations." This, the Father