Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/133



The want of a systematic guide to the whole field of classical mythology has long been felt. Our existing text-books are almost entirely out of date, and the student who wishes to familiarise himself with the latest investigations must seek for information in the often almost inaccessible pages of German, Russian, and Italian periodicals, or from numberless privately printed dissertations and pamphlets. Preller's well-known handbooks, admirable as they are, do not represent the present state of opinion on many points; besides which, the Griechischen Mythologie is out of print. Indeed, the only comparatively recently published work dealing with the whole range of mythological subjects, as far as Greece is concerned, is Decharme's Mythologie de la Grèc Antique, a careful and well-meaning but assuredly not exhaustive work. All students will therefore welcome the new lexicon; they will find in it the minute and laborious accuracy, the fulness of bibliographical reference, the carefulness of quotation, the exhaustiveness of method which characterise so honourably modern German scholarship. Every help is afforded to the student engaged in independent and original investigation, and desirous of testing the conclusions of the author of each article; whilst at the same time the information is given in such a clear and definite form, and the various theories are so truly stated, as to make the work of great value to the scholar who, without being a specialist himself, wishes to keep au courant of the researches of specialists. As might be expected, the present is a lexicon almost as much of classical archæology as of mythology in the usual sense. It is only within comparatively recent times that the importance of the plastic and figured side of mythology has been fully recognised, and most students will agree that this is the most promising and fruitful branch of mythological investigation. The present instalment carries the work down to "Anios." Of especial importance and fulness are the articles of