Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/86

76 department is that of classical learning. Not long ago Professor Jevons attempted, and with considerable success, to answer some of the questions in relation to the customs of the ancient Romans which puzzled Plutarch. And now Dr. Granger is following in his wake, and offering solutions of problems which he left among the things "which were too hard for him." (Of such is the question why the Romans never went out to supper without taking their young sons with them, even when quite children.)

Dr. Granger is evidently impressed with the very meagre and unsatisfactory account of Roman belief and ritual to be obtained from the ordinary text-books and the writings of men who are classical scholars and nothing else. Starting, therefore, from the formal and external character of Roman religion, which is obvious to the most superficial student, and from what is known of the Roman temperament and habit of mind, he endeavours to explain by the comparative method the thoughts underlying the Roman conception of the gods and of nature and to trace their evolution. The result is a valuable contribution to our knowledge: even more valuable for its suggestions than for the actual information, though that is not inconsiderable, which it imparts. We have, indeed, one fault to find with the book—its compression. Dr. Granger seems hardly to have realised for what class of readers he was writing. If for "the general reader," then he has forgotten how little that personage is acquainted with the details of Roman history and customs (particularly during the early period, with which he is most concerned), though their general course may be tolerably familiar. Hence he often simply alludes to events and practices which will not, we fear, be sufficiently fresh in the minds of many readers to enable them readily to follow his argument. If, on the other hand, he be addressing students of the classics or of folklore, he would have done well to work out some of the consequences of the propositions he has laid down, and to give us a few of the inferences which he has avoided as resting "on acute combinations of authorities." To put a single example out of many: seeing how prominent a position sacrifice held in Roman worship, it would have been well to elaborate the section on sacrifice, and especially on animal sacrifice.

In a survey of so large a field it is impossible, of course, to treat of every matter. The author's selection has, on the whole, been made with judgment. But, although it may be perfectly