It_is a blessed thing to find that in these half-baked days there is still a Public for a book so delightful and so erudite as the "Q. Horati Flacci Carminum Liber Quintus" (Blackwell, 3s. 6d. net) of Mr. Kipling and Mr. Graves (says the "Globe"). Those who remember the "Hawarden Horace" of the latter will need no other inducement to read this book, but it was very daring to father the Latinity of two modern poets upon "numerous Horatius" himself. Yet the thing is so wickedly well done that it might deceive the very elect, and the ingenious pedantry of the footnotes is a pure joy in itself.
So solemn is the Prefatio that f¢|you are almost persuaded that Horace really must have written a fifth book of lyrics hitherto undiscovered, until you are brought up all standing against such astonishing expressions as ""Badensi Grosspaniandrumpinacotheca," and are required to admire the piety, but not the Latin, of the '"Vicarius de Boosting Parva," and the learning of Professor Toshius" among the Japanese. We confess that until Mr. Godley, who is responsible for this sinful preface, introduced us to them we were ignorant of the names of these scholars, and even now we are a little sceptical of the learning of his other authority, "the venerable Tomirotius," from Patagonia.
However, when we come to_ the Odes themselves we find the Latin nearly as good as the English—which is saying a great deal—and one Sapphic is a perfect gem its kind. We cannot refrain from quoting the last stanza of it together with the English of Mr.
vineas subtler nihil hic noceates siccus accumbes, recinesque mecum Lloydii potate merum vetantis jura Georgi.
Otherwise:
Here, stretched at ease beneath the vine (Now balked in its maiefic mission) Shall we experience, as we dine, The joys of Prohibition,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.