Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/147

10 s. x. AUG. s, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

119 criminal acts recorded of magicians. The Duchess of Gloucester's endeavour to kill Henry VI., whether the story be true or false, has found a place in history. We are told also that the life of Pope Urban VI. was attempted in a similar manner. The earliest instance, however, that occurs to me is Egyptian. There was a plot to kill Rameses III. in this way. The practice is heard of at Inverness in the earlier part of the eighteenth century; and I have been informed that similar acts of perfidy were practised at a much later time among the North American Indians.

I shall be glad to learn of any having been discovered in Great Britain during the last century.

So far as an ordinary reader can say, Elworthy's 'Evil Eye' is the authority. There may be in 'The Golden Bough,' 2nd ed., or in Leland's 'Etruscan Roman Remains,' 1892, something; but the subject is really sympathetic magic. The index to 'The Golden Bough' shows nothing.

's edition of 'The Seven against Thebes' appears in the form we associate with Jebb's 'Sophocles': Greek text on one page, English prose translation on the facing page, and below first critical and then textual notes. It is the best possible arrangement for study, and Prof. Tucker's work is of a quality which deserves the compliment of ranking with the best Cambridge scholarship. He follows, we are glad to find, the tendency to believe in the Medicean MS. which is the chief source of Æschylean text, and explain it where possible, instead of indulging in wildly ingenious conjecture. He dissents in the Introduction from Wecklein, and in the matter of "Geschmack" mentioned he will win the suffrages of most scholars. He has that cultivation and sense of poetry without which high degrees are often gained, but which is necessary to control the sense of assurance gained by the expert. He has, of course, a great advantage in being able to consult the excellent work on the play of previous scholars, such as Dr. Arthur Sidgwick and Dr. Verrall. His own contributions to the subject show a wide range of erudition, and good judgment. We are at once surprised and pleased to see a special annotated section at the end devoted to the Scholia of the Medicean. From their mistakes as well as their correct conclusions much may be learnt, as from Servius on Virgil. The presence of English parallels—a page of which from Dr. Leeper is also added in an Appendix—is satisfactory, though there is less danger than there was in the days of Paley of forgetting that Æschylus is a poet as well as a difficult Greek author. As the Preface says regarding the edition, "Its object is the conscientious interpretation of the 'Septem' as a work of dramatic art and a monument of Greek literature. To this aim all else is subordinate."

This is an excellent aim, and the notes are sufficient as regards matters of language and usage. We wish, however, that there was a list of at the end—a list we have made invariably in our own studies of all the Greek dramatists.

The editor's treatment of the text may be exhibited in the speech of Eteocles in which he says (l. 257): "I vow to the country's guardian gods, whether they watch the fields or keep eye upon the mast,, that if good befall and the realm be saved, men shall steep the hearths of the gods in blood of sheep," &c. The second half of the line we have left in Greek has been often emended. The reading now given varies only from the MS. by changing into, following Abresch, and means "nor do I rule Ismenus out," i.e., "I vow to Dirce's streams, and Ismenus no less." This seems to us quite satisfactory, and far superior, at any rate, to (Weil's Teubner text),  (Sidgwick, "Oxford Classical Text"), and various wilder conjectures. Prof. Tucker himself once conjectured, as he notes, but has now no doubt of the true correction. Dr. Verrall's Bœotian form is also very near the MS., but unexampled in Greek literature. In l. 265 is the subject of a valuable note, pointing out that in ancient days the raiment of the foe was a valuable part of the spoil, and that the very word "robe" means booty. Cf. German Raub, and A.-S. reáf=clothing, spoil, plunder, as Prof. Skeat says in his Dictionary. We think that Prof. Tucker has fairly established a claim in these and other passages for a consideration of his views.

The English translation is spirited and abounds in picturesque touches, as befits the occasion. Our only comment here is that the sentences are occasionally more broken up than is necessary, with the result of something like paraphrase instead of translation.

The Cornhill Magazine Mr. W. E. Norris has an amusing short story 'The Missing Links,' a comedy of marriage engagements. Mr. H. W. Lucy's continuation of his 'Sixty Years in the Wilderness' is full of interest, and shows the spirit and firmness with which he encountered various set-backs in his career. The article has many pleasant touches. Miss Virginia Stephen reviews 'A Week in the White House with Theodore Roosevelt,' indicating the virtues which have endeared the President to the American People. He is "an alert machine, efficient in all its parts," possessed of a remarkable sympathy, and his very limitations are those which appeal to the ordinary man. Mr. Bernard Capes has an amusing article on 'Bad Relations.' He makes pretty play with the old contention that no person could have been exactly what he was in real life or fiction with any other name than his own. The mother-in-law is a byword for discord, but the slander is much older than Mr. Capes seems to imagine. He explains that