nexion with the character of mind I have described above: but I must not dwell on this.

On Perinoemitism I will not say anything here, leaving this for a review of Mr Trench's books on the subject.

The last great branch of linguistic research is Phonogrammatism, the study of pronunciation, alphabets and writing: of the able manner in which it is now being pursued by Lepsius and others, most of my readers are probably aware.

(To be continued.)

VINDICIAE SOPHOCLEAE.

SOPHOCLES, Edited by LEWIS CAMPBELL, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Greek in the University of St Andrew's.

1871.

As a learner and as a teacher of Greek, from boyhood to the present time, I have owed so much to the careful and constant study of Sophocles, that I regard the interpretation of that admirable poet with a fond and somewhat jealous interest. Hence it was with a mixture of hope and anxiety that I sat down to read the three plays of the Theban Cycle, edited by Professor Lewis Campbell. The perusal of these, so far as I have carried it, has left upon my mind a strong feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction, for which I propose to account in this review of the work. I have no wish to withhold from Prof. Campbell the credit of being an elegant Greek scholar, with knowledge and taste enough to be oftener right than not, even in explaining so hard an author as Sophocles. But when I add that his insight into Sophoclean thought is not so keen, his grasp of Sophoclean style not so strong, as to save him from falling into much error, I say no more than I am prepared to establish by competent proofs to competent judges (φωνάντα συνετοῖσι). I wish therefore he had taken more time for study and thought before he ventured on an enterprise so bold and difficult.

I have no taste for literary warfare: but, so far as I have to wage it here, it is forced upon me by Prof. Campbell himself. His editorial plan, not to be commended as worthy of imitation, is to ignore as much as he can the notes of previous editors and commentators, even when he avails himself of their views, even when he carries on against them a covert warfare in which

good scholars will not often award to him the palm of victory. In the first play (Oedipus Rex) he has only two or three times cited, very curtly, Elmsley, Hermann or Dindorf. In the Antigone, I perceive that he is a little more generous in his references, for besides Elmsley, he sometimes cites Donaldson, both of them scholars 'quos Libitina sacravit.' But a previous and living editor, Mr Linwood, one of the very best Greek scholars, linguistically considered, who have graduated at Oxford in the present century, is passed over altogether by Prof. Campbell both in his preface and in his notes, though certainly not unconsulted by him. When an editor is thus treated, it is not for me to complain of similar treatment, who am only a cursory annotator.

It is, however, necessary to my present purpose that I should refer to those annotations of mine. They appeared as far back as the year 1854, in Nos. II. and III. of the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology,' as Notes on Schneidewin's edition of the Oedipus Rex. Their main design was to show the possibility of solving many difficulties of ancient literature, by applying to them a logical method of criticism: that is, by first observing what the nexus of thought in the place requires, and then carefully considering whether from the existing text the sense so required can be reasonably drawn. The manner in which I had been led to the discovery of the proposed meaning in most of these places, itself affords some little presumption of that meaning being true. In the work of teaching, I had always deemed it a pleasure and a duty to make myself master of an author's train of thought, and, in expounding at the close of each lesson, to place this before the class in the clearest and most forcible language at my command. Hence it came that from time to time I found myself confronted by passages of which the received and prima facie interpretation was, in a logical point of view, very unsatisfactory to my judgment. For some time, I suppose, I got over them as well as I could; and occasionally, I dare say, I suppressed a difficulty which presented itself to me because I was not prepared with a solution. But such passages, as often as they occurred, left their sting behind: they worried me; they were

revolved, brooded over: and the consequence was that, in many instances, the right solution came in upon my mind, like a lightning flash, when least expected. The first place of which I remember to have thus discovered the true sense by a sudden intuition, was Antig. 31, 2. The perception of Oed. T. 44, 5, came afterwards: later again that of Oed. T. 1085, 6, and yet later that of Oed. C. 308, 9, which I was extremely glad to have found out. With regard to all the interpretations here specified, having had more than twenty years in which to reconsider them, I am bound to say that my opinion remains unchanged: I have the fullest and firmest conviction that they are true, necessary, and unassailable by sound argument. Prof. Campbell has in some places (as Oed. T. 1085, 6) simply appropriated my explanation without acknowledgment; one (Oed. C. 308, 9) he has adopted at the same time that he does his utmost to spoil it: elsewhere he contends in a covert manner against me; but in no instance has he mentioned my name as a commentator on Sophocles. Such conduct, though I regard it with indifference personally, releases me from any unwillingness I might otherwise have felt to undertake the task of pointing out his many mistakes. The only regret I feel is on his account, and for the honour of literature itself, which ought to promote in its students a more generous spirit.

Before entering on a detailed examination of Prof. Campbell's commentary, I shall review the interpretation of three passages; so contrasting his method with mine, and enabling critical scholars to form their own judgment concerning them. I cannot however invite that judgment, without first placing my readers under a kind of mental engagement to disencumber themselves of all prejudice, especially of that subtle and prevailing prejudice against the New, so obstructive to all truth, which Horace bravely reprobates, Epist. II. 1. 75,

Indignor quicquam reprehendi non quia crasse
Compositum illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper,

and which Bacon has placed second among his 'Idols of the Tribe: Nov. Org. I. 46.

'Intellectus humanus in iis quae semel placuerunt (aut quia

recepta sunt et credita aut quia delectant) alia etiam omnia trahit ad suffragationem et consensum cum illis et licet maior sit instantiarum vis et copia, quae concurrunt in contrarium, tamen eas aut non observat aut contemnit aut distinguendo summovet et reicit, non sine magno et pernicioso praeiudicio, quo prioribus illis syllepsibus auctoritas maneat inviolata.'

'In regard to decisions once adopted, the human understanding (either because they are received and believed, or because they are pleasant) is apt to draw everything else into unison and agreement with them and although the weight and number of the arguments on the opposite side be greater, yet it either does not observe these, or disdains them, or by some distinction sets them aside and rejects them, not without great and mischievous prejudice, in order that those former conclusions may keep their authority unimpaired.'

If this prejudice, as Bacon thinks, has so much influence in the sciences, where reasonings have generally the cogency which belongs either to experiment or to mathematical demonstration, much more must it operate in the interpretation of the ancient languages, which depends on a combination of linguistic skill, logic, and taste. Scholars are tempted to consider a new explanation of a well-known passage as a kind of personal affront. Why had it never occurred to themselves? Why, in the course of two thousand years, had it never been advanced by any commentator of any country? Why had it been left to a scholar of small note in the 19th century to detect what so many superior minds in so many successive generations had failed to see? And as no answer can be given to these really irrelevant, but eminently natural questions, judgment is likely to go against a novel interpretation (non quia crasse, sed quia nuper) by virtue of the law which Bacon notes, because it threatens to break a Dagon or a Bel, before which a long line of commentators and translators have been content to bow.

I. The first passage of which I shall examine Prof. Campbell's version in comparison with mine, is Soph. Oed. R. 44, 5. ὡς τοῖσιν ἐμπείροισι καὶ τὰς ξυμφορὰς ζώσας ὁρῶ μάλιστα τῶν βουλευμάτων.