hasis. Between the two, in the respects mentioned, we are hardly able
to choose.

Mr. Higginson is, indeed, a little fastidious, a little inclined to
purism, a little rigid upon the mint, anise, and cumin of literary law.
But this rendered him only the more fit for his present task. A
translator must bear somewhat hard upon minor obligations to his
vernacular, in order to overcome the resistance of a foreign idiom.

He has succeeded. He has given us Greek thought in English speech, not
merely in English words. It is, indeed, astonishing how modern Epictetus
seems in this version. This is due in part to the translator's tact in
finding modern _equivalents_ for Greek idioms, or for antiquated
allusions and illustrations. Once in a while one is a littled startled
by these; but more often they are so happy that one fancies he must have
thrown dice for them, or obtained them by some other turn of luck.

But he was favored, not only by literary ability, but by a native
affinity with his author and an old love for him. His taste is very
marked for this peculiar form of sanctity and heroism, the simple Stoic
morality, especially in that mature and mellow form which it assumes
with the later Stoic believers. In these first centuries of our era a
suffusion of divine tenderness seems to have crept through the veins of
the world, partly derived from Christianity, and partly contemporaneous
with it. In the case of Epictetus it must have been original. And the
peculiar simplicity with which he represents this tender spirit of love
and duty, while combining it with the utmost iron nerve of the old Stoic
morality,--its comparative disassociation in his pages with the
speculative imaginations which glorify or obscure it elsewhere,--is
deeply grateful, one sees, to the present translator.

He must have enjoyed his task heartily, while its happy completion has
prepared for many others, not only an enjoyment, but more and better
than that. May it, indeed, be for many! What were more wholesome for
this too luxuriant modern life than a little Stoic pruning?

Having mentioned that the book comes forth under the auspices of Little,
Brown, & Co., we have no need to say that it is an elegant volume.

_An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, and of
the Principal Philosophical Questions discussed in his
Writings._ By JOHN STUART MILL. In Two Volumes. Boston:
William V. Spencer.

Mr. Mill in this book defen