evident in the fourth century, and produced the Arian schism. But it impressed the passing age; Clement, working in and through Alexandria, did more than St. Paul to recommend Christianity to the

even Gentiles.

He was probably born in Greece about 150 A.D. and initiated into Mysteries there. Then he was converted and became head of the theological college in Alexandria, where he remained until his exile in 202. But little is known of his life and nothing of his character, though one may assume it was conciliatory: Christianity was not yet official, and thus in no position to fulminate. Of the three treatises in Mr. Butterworth's selection the "Exhortation to the Greeks" acknowledges several merits in pagan thought, while " The Rich Man's Salvation" handles with delicacy a problem on which business men are naturally sensitive, and arrives at the comforting conclusion that Christ did not mean what He said. One recognizes the wary resident. And when he attacks Paganism he seldom denounces; he mocks, knowing this to be the better way. For the age was literal. It had lost resilience and spring, and if one pointed out to it that Zeus had behaved absurdly in Homer it could summon no rush of instinct or of poetry with which to defend his worship. Demeter too!

And shrines

and its cults absurd or vile, yet its philosophers and
grasshoppers possessed a certain measure of divine truth;
some of the speculations of Plato, for instance, had been
inspired by the Psalms. It is not much of a verdict
in the light of modern research; Mr. Butterworth surely
goes too far in suggesting that Clement is of interest
in our problems of to-day; we too have to pour old wine
into new bottles, but we must have hands that are more
sensitive and more steady than his, or, like him, we shall
fail. Still, it is a moderate verdict for a Father; he
spares his thunders, he does not exalt asceticism, he is
never anti-social.

to the sneezing Apollo and to the gouty and tc
the coughing Artemis! Ha! Ha! Fancy believing in
a goddess with the gout. Clement makes great play
with such nonsense. For a new religion has, as far as
persiflage is concerned, an advantage over an old one:
it has not had time itself to evolve a mythology, and his
adversaries could not retort with references to St. Simeon
Stylites, or to the plague spot of St. Roch, or to St. Fina
who allowed a devil to throw her mother down the stairs.
They could only hang their heads and assent, and when
Clement derided the priests in the idol-temples for their dirt,
they could not foresee that in the following century dirt
would be recommended as holy by the Church. They
were caught by his genial air and by his "logic"; there
is nothing morose about the treatises, and even to-day
they are readable, though not quite in the way that the
author intended.

Till the ground if you are a husbandman; but recognize God
in your husbandry. Sail the sea, you who love sea-faring; but
ever call upon the heavenly pilot. Were you a soldier on campaign
when the knowledge of God laid hold of you? Then listen to the
commander who signals righteousness.

Here he shows his respect for the existing fabric and his
hope that it may pass without catastrophe from Pagan
to Christian, a hope that could have found expression only
at Alexandria, where contending assertions have so often.
been harmonized, and whose own god, Serapis, had ex-
pressed the union of Egypt and Greece.

Looking back-it is so easy to look back!-one can
see that the hope was vain. Christianity, though she
contained little that was fresh doctrinally, yet descended
with a double-edged sword that hacked the ancient world
to pieces. For she had declared war against two great
forces Sex and the State-and during her complicated
contest with them the old order was bound to disappear.
The contest had not really begun in Clement's day. Sex
disquieted him, but he did not revolt against it like his
successor Origen. The State exiled him, but it had not
yet put forth, as it did under Diocletian, its full claims
to divinity. He lived in a period of transition, and in
Alexandria. And in that curious city, which had never
been young and hoped never to grow old, conciliation
must have seemed more possible than elsewhere, and
the graciousness of Greece not quite incompatible with the
Grace of God.
E. M. F.

A solemn assembly of Greeks, held in honour of a dead serpent, was gathering at Pytho, and Eunomus sang a funeral ode for the reptile. Whether his song was a hymn in praise of the snake or a lamentation over it, I cannot say; but there was a competition and Eunomus was playing the lyre in the heat of the day, at the time when the grasshoppers, warmed by the sun, were singing under the leaves along the hills. They were singing, you see, not to the dead serpent of Pytho, but to the all-wise God, a spontaneous song, better than the measured strains of Eunomus. A string breaks in the Locrian's hands; the grasshopper settles upon the neck of the lyre and begins to twitter there as if upon a branch: whereupon the minstrel, by adapting his music to the grasshopper's lay, supplied the place of the missing string. So it was not Eunomus that drew the grasshopper by his song, as the legend would have it, when it set up the bronze figure at Pytho, showing Eunomus with his lyre and his ally in the contest. No, the grasshopper flew of its own accord, and sang of its own accord, although the Greeks thought it to have been responsive to music.

How in the world is it that you have given credence to worthless legends, imagining

But how grateful one is and blasts of theology ensue. to Clement for mentioning the grasshopper, and how probable it seems, from the way he tells the story, that he had a faint consciousness of its beauty-just as his risqué passages emanate a furtive consciousness of their riskiness. His learning is immense he is said to allude 300 Greek writers of whom we should not otherwise have heard and one gladly follows him through the The results of back yards of the Classical world. his ramble are most fully stated in two other of 44 the "Tutor." his treatises, the "Miscellanies" and His verdict is that though the poetry of Hellas is false

A BARBLESS ARROW

THE STARTING PLACE OF TRUTH. By A. H. Finn. (Marshall Brothers. 2s. 6d. net.)-The Greek translation of the Old Testament, made about the middle of the third century B.C., has its own defects and difficulties; but it witnesses to an early type of the original Hebrew text, and careful critics have been often able, by means of its evidence, to check the data of the so-called Massoretic Hebrew or official Jewish text, which is not earlier than the ninth century A.D. Especially in the historical books of Samuel and Kings, and in the Prophets, the Greek version is invaluable. Its importance has been overrated by some editors. But this is not a more serious error than to depreciate it, as several writers still do, in the interests of the old theory of verbal inspiration, which relies upon the supreme authority of the Massoretic text. This is what is done by Mr. A. H. Finn. He concentrates attention upon the Pentateuch, cleverly selects one or two cases where the Greek version is inferior, and concludes that

Pad 1

The Hebrew text now received, commonly called the Massoretic text, has preserved in all essentials, and to a very great extent even in minute detail, the original text of those Five Books which are the necessary foundation for all the subsequent books of the Old Testament, and therefore of the New Testament as well. We have here a secure Starting Place for ascertaining the Truth as displayed to us in God's revelation of Himself and of His Will in His Holy Word.

Mr. Finn has already published a large book attacking the Higher Criticism of the Old Testament. The Higher Criticism is like Joseph, "a fruitful bough: the archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him "-mainly with barbless arrows like this, which no amount of scholarship will ever drive home.

real

AN ENGLISHMAN'S CHINA

CHINA OF THE CHINESE. By E. T. C. Werner, H.B.M. Consul,
Foochow (retired). (Pitman, 9s. net.)

A

LOVER of Chinese art and literature, if he has
never been in China, cannot help forming some
mental image of the country and the people
from which these things have come, but it is hardly likely
that he will form a correct image. A continental scholar
who formed his ideas of England from "Beowulf," Chaucer
and Shakespeare would not feel at home if he were suddenly
planted in Trafalgar Square. Yet even "Beowulf" is
modern in comparison with quite half of the Chinese
literature available in translation. And although the
reflection is so elementary that it seems absurd to mention
it, one must remember that in all ages and among all
races the poet and the artist are exceptional men, honoured
or execrated according to circumstances, but never under-
stood and never typical. All the individuals mentioned
in history are in some way abnormal, since otherwise they
would be obscure. Consequently every period has
believed that men were more remarkable in the past than
in the present; and the same illusion applies to a distant
country of which we only have the sort of knowledge
that will become history.

China is the one country in the world that has an
unbroken tradition of civilization from very ancient times.
Its reliable history begins, according to Mr. Werner, about
the year 2357 B.C. The "Shû King," the official history
of early China, was for the most part composed at the
time of the events which it describes, and is regarded as
being true and reliable to the same extent as the official
histories of more modern States. It is available for English
readers, along with other Confucian texts, in The Sacred
Books of the East" (Vol. III.). Confucius, one feels, is
in China what Aristotle was in Europe until the Renais-
sance the great conquering influence for conservatism,
traditionalism, and authority. His work consisted mainly
in editing older sacred texts. When doubts began to arise
as to the desirability of the blood feud, Confucius declared
with all possible emphasis in its favour. His whole system
of morals centres in family piety; like all primitive
codes, it urges acts, observances, ceremonies, with a nearly
complete indifference to the moods and dispositions from
which they spring. The early Taoists represent the very
antithesis to this: they believe in unfettered nature, in
free growth; in government they are anarchists, in morals
antinomians. Confucius sometimes expresses sentiments
which recall those of the Gospels, though the effect of these
is prevented by the respect for laws and rules. But the
Taoists will not allow even such a general rule of life as
love thy neighbour"; they will not tolerate any inter-
ference with what is natural. Chuang Tzu, the Taoist

St. Paul, reports an imaginary conversation between his master Lao Tzu and Confucius : *

"Tell me," said Lao Tzu, "in what consist charity and duty to one's neighbour?

"

They consist," answered Confucius, “in a capacity for rejoicing in all things; in universal love, without the element of self. These

tradict itself?

are the characteristics of charity and duty to one's neighbour.'
What stuff!" cried Lao Tzu. Does not universal love con-
Is not your elimination of self a positive manifesta-
tion of self? Sir, if you would cause the empire not to lose its source
of nourishment-there is the universe, its regularity is unceasing;
there are the sun and moon, their brightness is unceasing; there
are the stars, their groupings never change; there are birds and
beasts, they flock together without varying; there are trees and
shrubs, they grow upwards without exception. Be like these;
follow Tac; and you will be perfect. Why then these vain struggles
after charity and duty to one's neighbour, as though beating a drum
in search of a fugitive?
fusion into the mind of man."
Alas! sir, you have brought much con-

But Confucianism prevailed among the educated, and

"Musings of a Chinese Mystic" (Murray, 1911), p. 75.

Taoism sank to the level of vulgar magic. China became and remained until 1912, a country regulated by tradition to an extent unknown in the West even in the strictest period of the Middle Ages. In poetry no rhymes must occur except 106 which were standardized in the eighth century; in life, etiquette regulates every moment. Mr. Werner quotes instructions for behaviour at a dinner party, of which the following are a sample:

If a guest add condiments, the host will apologize for not having
If he swill down the sauces [which
had the soup prepared better.
should be too strong to be swallowed largely and hurriedly], the
host will apologize for his poverty
When they have done
eating the guests will kneel in front (of the mat). . . and (begin to)
remove the (dishes of) rice and sauces to give them to the attendants.
The host will then rise and decline this service from the guests,
who will resume their seats.

And so on, through a bewildering variety of details
Concise instructions as to how to make a present of a bow
occupy 140 words. The "Li Chi," one of the sacred texts
of Confucianism, from which the above passage is quoted,
consists entirely of rules of etiquette and behaviour on
various occasions.

Mr. Werner's book is an admirable account of the national and social life of China, not of its notable personalities, but of its institutions, customs, growth and decay. We feel as if we were being told the truth, and the resulting impression is complex and contradictory, as truth always is, not simple and proceeding from a central idea, as do the impressions of a masterful personality. The following sentence is typical:

Emotionally the Chinese are mild, frugal, sober, gregarious industrious, of remarkable endurance, but at the same time cowardly revengeful, very cruel, unsympathetic, mendacious, thievish and libidinous.

Some of the effects of the Confucian doctrine of love of our neighbour are remarkable. Humane feeling led to the maxim that a criminal cannot be punished unless he confesses; consequently he is tortured so long as he refuses to confess.

During the judicial trials following the Nanch'ang massacre in 1905, which I was sent officially to investigate, some of the murderers were hung up by their thumbs and appeared at the trial with blisters on them the size of a hen's egg, and others were made to kneel on chains in court. In spite of my protests, the Chinese judge maintained that in default of torture there would be no confession, and without confession no criminal could be punished.

It would seem that, on the whole, the most cruel emperors were those who cared most for art and literature. For example, the Emperor Chia Ch'ing, who was "rather a poet than a competent administrator," and "wasted much valuable time in searching after the elixir of life," adopted the punishment of wrapping a man in cotton soaked in oil, hanging him up by the heels, and setting him on fire from the top. An exception, however, must be made in favour of the Ch'in dynasty, a vigorous practical race who punished with death all discussion of books or poetry.

According to the "Book of Rites," there were five hundred offences punishable with death. Some of them are curious:

Using licentious music; strange garments; wonderful contrivances and extraordinary implements, thus raising doubts among the multitudes all who used or formed such things were put to death. Those who were persistent in hypocritical conduct and disputatious in hypocritical speeches; who studied what was wrong, and went on to do so more and more, and whoever increasingly followed what was wrong so as to bewilder the multitudes : these were put to death.

This horror of novelty seems to have dominated the national life effectively for the past two thousand years. It has produced political decay and incapacity for defence against the Great Powers; it has made government cruel, inefficient, and corrupt; it has filled life with wholly useless pains, such as the binding of women's feet; it has

AUGU

A

MR. BINYON'S WAR-POETRY

THE FOUR YEARS. By Laurence Binyon. (Elkin Mathews.
7s. 6d. net.)

ancient tradition; one would support the Republic, WE

Parliamentary government, and European dress; one would advocate red-brick houses and furniture from Birmingham; one would write scientific doctors' theses in English rather than poems in Chinese. Modern China is throwing over tradition, and in so doing is doubtless pursuing the path of happiness for the people. But it is at the same time, and unavoidably, throwing over a heritage of exquisite beauty. Chinese poetry, even in translationfor example, in Mr. Waley's " 170 Chinese Poems "--has a quality different from that of European poetry, in certain ways superior: more subtle and elusive, more detached and universal, more skilled in eliciting the symbolic quality of common things. This from Mr. Waley's book may serve as an example :

E are met, on the cover of Mr. Binyon's book, by
a quotation from some unnamed critic to the
effect that "these verses belong already to
the treasured heritage of English Poetry." And when
we have read them we are inclined to agree that this
verdict is, in a certain sense, a true verdict. For we feel
as we read "The Four Years" that the poems it contains
might have been composed a century ago, or at almost
any other time when the treasured heritage was in process
of being gathered together. We should never be surprised
to find any of Mr. Binyon's poems in an anthology dealing
with the Hundred Years', Thirty Years', Seven Years',
or Napoleonic or Crimean Wars. Indeed, they would
make a very good show in any anthology dealing with
any war that is not the present war. They are grave
and noble in sentiment, exhibit a faultless literary taste,
and are, technically, highly accomplished. And yet,
somehow, for the apparently trivial reason that they were
written to-day instead of even a generation ago, they
are unsatisfying.

The poets of this war, of whom Mr. Sassoon is perhaps the most characteristic, have looked at war, not as Mr. Binyon and Wordsworth, not as Scott and Campbell regarded it as the clash of moral principles or as something essentially glorious and honourable--but from a quite different point of view. They write as tortured individuals struggling in the clutches of a blind and senselessly cruel fate. Let us take an example: Mr. Binyon comes upon a group of crippled French soldiers, broken wreckage from Verdun :

A FLOOD IN THE OFFICE

THE NILE PROJECTS. By Sir William Willcocks. (Cairo, printing
office of the French Institute of Archæology.)

F

ATHER NILE, as the ancients ignorantly called him, is not the old gentleman he seems. Century after century he affected to rise in the Mountains of the Moon, and pour in a single flood through the land of Egypt for agricultural purposes. It was a clever pose, but, like so many others, it has been detected by modern research. The Nile turns out to be not one old gentleman, but two. He proves to have a dual personality, the integration of which may be studied at Khartoum. There two streams unite. On the right is the White Nile, which issued from the respectable bosom of the Victoria Nyanza, but which then did some curious things, notably involving itself in a vast and scandalous mass of decaying vegetables, known as the Sudd: it is not as clean as it looks, the White Nile. To the left is the Blue Nile, descending from the grubby uplands of Abyssinia, and providing colouring matter for the whole fluvial synthesis. On the tricks and whims of these two tributaries the Father's personality depends, and it is not surprising that he should be rather unstable, and that his worshippers should come to different conclusions about him. This, to put it mildly, is what has happened in this awful row. Two eminent engineers, Sir William Willcocks and Sir Murdoch MacDonald, have come to different conclusions about the personality of the Nile.

Now the Nile, whatever it is, has to be shared between the Sudan and Egypt, and it visits the Sudan first. Consequently, if the amount available for irrigation be over-estimated, the Sudan will get its share in fact, but Egypt will get hers on paper only. Sir Murdoch, according to Sir William, has in the first place wilfully over-estimated the amount of water available. He has exaggerated the discharge of both the White and Blue Nile, he has concealed since 1913 the tables that gave the true discharges, he has exaggerated the contents of the Aswan reservoir and the discharges therefrom; while the documents giving the true discharges were (always something shady) "stolen, lock, stock, and barrel, with their plotted cross-sections, velocity observations, and complete calculations." Blacker still. Affecting to help Sir William, Sir Murdoch has prepared a plate which not only misleads in the vital matter of an Outer Toe, but also contains certain diabolical red lines:

The red lines were professedly put in by him to elucidate my examination of the plates. I find that the red line, on the 1908 plate, by its inaccurate drawing, merely helps to confuse one. All these errors on a single plate, and all in one direction! And on the top of everything else the big-scale original 1908 diagram, full of inaccuracies, has got lost.

It is not quite the top, for Sir Murdoch has also been disingenuous about seepage and scour, and “To omit the correction for scour," as Sir William points out, “is like omitting the word 'Thereon,' and then quoting Scripture to say Hang all the law and the Prophets.' Moreover,

he has seduced Sir William's former allies, four InspectorsGeneral named Mr. Tottenham, Mr. Molesworth, Mr. Adamson, and Mr. Hurst, who, when the row is at its height, advance unexpectedly to the footlights and perform a stately pas de quatre, expressive of official grief and surprise at Sir William's behaviour. Sir William wastes little time over the quartet, merely informing it that as you have taken up your position, for reasons (as I conceive them) different from those put on paper, I shall certainly respect it. I thank God, I know my profession and need no intellectual corvée to do my work." And elsewhere he remarks that it was not King Henry II., but four members of his household, who did the actual killing of St. Thomas à Becket.

What led Sir Murdoch on this path of crime? Partly

the White Nile, partly the Blue; it is not easy to apportion the blame between them. His scheme apparently is (i) to dam the Blue Nile at Sennar, and devote most of the water thus obtained to the irrigation of the Sudan; (ii) to compensate Egypt by damming up the White Nile into a large reservoir just above Khartoum-a scheme which, in Sir William's judgment, will (a) rob Egypt of her immemorial water rights; (b) drown her, for the White Nile reservoir will probably burst; (c) in any case drown out the inhabitants of the White Nile valley; (d) bring myriads of malarial mosquitoes to the gates of Khartoum (e)-but he makes fifteen charges in all. He prints the charges just as he laid them before the Committee appointed by the Foreign Office to inquire into the row; he appends to each charge the Committee's reply, which is in many cases Silence," and then he adds his criticism of the Committee's reply. At the end are appendices and two lectures. The whole makes fascinating reading. It is well arranged and (as far as Sir William is concerned) well written; it is inspired by a passion for truth, and by something even rarer-a passion for water. Sir William's veneration for the queer river he once served is amazing; not only has he a vivid sense of its antiquity, but his own dealings with it have been touched by the superhuman, so that in the course of hydraulic operations he has seen magno mærentem corpore Nilum Pandentemque sinus et tota veste vocantem Cæruleum in gremium latebrosaque flumina;

and he is never more impressive than when he withdraws from the contest, and allows that complication of waters to speak for itself:

When we

Father Nile himself has shown his strong disapprobation of the Gebel Aoli reservoir [i.e., of the second part of Sir Murdoch's scheme] by sending down a summer flood on the White Nile which effectively stopped all work on the dam. Seated on the top of the Gebel Aoli hill, the engineers might contemplate the site of their barrage, but they could not get within a kilometre of it for a year and a half. This is in keeping with all the traditions of the Nile. When he wearied of the arbitrary government of the old Khediviate, he sent down the extraordinarily low flood of 1877, followed by the extraordinarily high one of 1878, and accomplished in a couple of years what Europe had been trying to do for scores of years. began the redemption of the corvée in 1885 and were entangled in unforeseen difficulties, he sent one of the earliest floods on record and made the operation a brilliant success. He looked kindly on the construction of the Aswan dam, and sent four successive low floods so that the work might be expeditiously built. He will have none of the contemplated destruction of the White Nile province, which is fast recovering from the withering rule of the Derveshes. And he conceives of the Nile as an immemorial but enlightened stream, favourable to the British Empire and the poor. Such a stream will never be taken in by the wiles of Sir Murdoch MacDonald. It will meet plot by counterplot, it will empty his reservoirs by evaporation or burst them by flood until he and the four InspectorsGeneral with him have perished off the land. But the alternative scheme-Sir William's own-the Nile will bless, even as it blessed the dam he cast across it at Aswan; This scheme is to utilize the despised and dreaded region of the Sudd-the huge tangle of water-growth that blocks. the Equatorial reaches of the White Nile. Not for nothing did the Nile allow these weeds to grow. Apparently so pernicious, they are really a vast natural reservoir, which has only to be tapped and regulated to provide both Egypt and the Sudan with all the water they desire:

The problem is solved, but, like every true solution of nature's mysteries, it has yielded a double blessing. It has given itself a new name. 'Thy name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name." It is no longer the "Sudd Region," but the "Sudd Reservoir."

Such is the character that Sir William gives the Nile. One wishes he could add that the Father cared for Art, but, like other pious elderly gentlemen it ignores such a trifle, and the Aswan reservoir has not only submerged the temples on Philæ, but has led to the waterlogging of Luxor and

Karnak. Properly handled, the Nile is a force for good, a moral force, and there we must leave him.

As to the merits of the rival schemes, it is for expert engineers, and not for THE ATHENEUM, to pronouncethough one may observe in passing that Sir William Willcocks stands at the very head of his profession, that he writes with obvious sincerity, that his charges are extremely detailed and have in many cases been ignored by the Committee, and that his general plea for openness and frankness deserves the warmest support of the public. Anyone who has worked in an office knows how strong is the tendency to hush everything up and how the subordinate is always sacrificed to save the superior. What concerns us, however, is the psychology of the dispute. Never, since Professor Housman published his Preface to Manilius, has a technical work been so lively. There is a literature outside literature-books which, without observing any canons of art, can convey passion and even beauty. "The Nile Projects" is such a book because, besides exhibiting human disputants, it does convey some idea of a subtle and unique mass of water.

E. M. F.

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL

WISDOM

SHEKEL HAKODESH (THE HOLY SHEKEL), THE METRICAL WORK
OF JOSEPH KIMCHI
ΤΟ WHICH IS ADDED YESOD
HAYIRAH (THE FOUNDATION OF RELIGIOUS FEAR). By
Hermann Gollancz, D.Litt. (Milford, 21s. net.)

T

vast majority of cases it is wisest for the translator to
aim merely at expressing the sense of his original in clear
modern speech. This Professor Gollancz has done; and
as he has also succeeded in imparting to his prose version
something of the literary flavour of the medieval texts,
an increased degree of merit in this matter must fall to
his share.

Our editor and translator has attempted no final
solution of the various literary problems connected with
his subject. Is the compilation of the important work
known as "The Choice of Pearls" to be assigned definitely
to Solomon ibn Gabirol, of the first half of the eleventh
century, who under the name Avicebron was far-famed
in the Middle Ages as the author of the philosophical
work "Fons Vita"? In what relation does "The Choice
of Pearls" stand to "The Dicta of the Philosophers,"
rendered from Greek sources into Arabic by the Nestorian
Christian Hunein ibn Ishak? Who was the author of
"The Foundation of Religious Fear," and what collections
of sayings, besides "The Choice of Pearls," were used
by Joseph Kimchi (1105-70) for his "Shekel Hakodesh"?
These are the main questions to which answers have yet
to be given. Professor Gollancz offers here and there in
his introduction some shrewd suggestions, but he has in
the main contented himself with a series of quotations
on these matters from previous writers.

HE world need never-or perhaps more appropriately should never-be afraid of getting too much wisdom, even if the wisdom happens, as in the present case, to exhibit a considerable admixture of piety. Modern readers should, therefore, be ready to extend a hearty welcome to the gnomes, aphorisms, and occasional anecdotes placed before them in Professor H. Gollancz's latest volume. By far the larger number of these wise sayings and admonitory paragraphs are medieval Hebrew renderings from the Arabic; and as the Arabic itself was largely based on Greek sources, we have to contemplate the interesting genealogy running from the Greek to Arabic, Hebrew, and now also English. Nor must it be forgotten that, in the opinion of many, the higher thought of Greece was considerably indebted to India and Egypt, so that some part, at any rate, of the contents of this volume might legitimately lay claim to something approaching the character of cosmopolitanism. And this is as it ought to be, for wisdom, like music, should, without in the least concealing the imprint of its national origin, aim at becoming as completely cosmopolitan as possible.

With the English translation of "The Foundation of Religious Fear" we have been acquainted since its first publication about four years ago, and some estimate of its value will be found in a review of it published in THE ATHENÆUM for July 31, 1915; and now that the Hebrew text itself lies before us, we are able to reaffirm the statement that, though neither very original nor particularly striking in thought or diction, "a dignified level is maintained" throughout the composition. It was evidently written con amore and with sufficient ease, under the inspiration of a religious idea that pervades it from the beginning to the end, so that, notwithstanding the frequent borrowing that no doubt lies behind it, the unifying stamp of Jewish piety is impressed on every stanza of the work.

Professor Gollancz, who gives us the Hebrew texts in a well-edited form, and also acts as the interpreter of their contents into English, had been zealously engaged on this undertaking for a number of years. The task of translating the second work named in the title was comparatively easy, the diction of the original being clear and smooth throughout; but the rendering of the Shekel Hakodesh," which, as the title indicates, was intended as an artistic metrical representation of a wisdom-book written in prose, must have presented a good many difficulties to our conscientious translator. The result must be pronounced praiseworthy for the most part, and even happy in a considerable number of instances. He has wisely refrained from attempting a versified translation of either work. For this discreet act of self-restraint a reviewer who has often groaned in spirit over modern metrical renderings from the wisdom literature contained in the Bible must be particularly grateful. A man must be not only a versifier, but a true poet, in order to do a thing like this well. In the

66

The Shekel Hakodesh" has no doubt considerable merit as a specimen of medieval Hebrew versification, but we confess to a decided feeling that the exigencies of rhyme and rhythm often tend to detract from the clearness and terseness of the sentences as found in their prose form in "The Choice of Pearls." In the last-named work we, for instance, read: "A man without wisdom is like a house without a foundation"; but in the poetic form it becomes: "Truly man's body without wisdom. is as a house without a base, as a field in which the thorn springeth forth in the furrow." Instances of a similar kind might easily be multified, but only one other example may fitly be given here. The prose version has "Be as sparing with thy tongue as thou art with thy wealth," and in the metrical work this is turned into: "Thy tongue bind fast, as thou wouldst a treasure bind; for if thou heed not, it will fare ill with thy soul."

It is quite true that some of the point and piquancy of the Hebrew verse is naturally lost in the English rendering; but we believe that, even after making a liberal allowance under this head, many modern readers will rather go for their wisdom, if they really want some of it, to "The Choice of Pearls" (published in Hebrew and English by B. H. Asche, in 1859) than to the "Shekel Hakodesh" of the talented and learned Joseph Kimchi.

DR. SAMUEL SMILES, of University College, London, has been appointed to the newly created Chair of Organic Chemistry of Armstrong College, Newcastle. Dr. Smiles had a distinguished university career and has written several works of importance on organic dyestuffs.