n regard to Thucydides is
introduced in a manner that prepares us for some startling disclosures:
"As regards the historian's trustworthiness, it has been so universally
lauded that it is high time to declare how far his statements are to be
accepted as absolute truths." But expectation subsides when we are
assured in the next sentence that "on contemporary facts his authority
is very good, and so far there has been no proof of any inaccuracy
brought home to him." He is open to doubt, it appears, "only when he
goes into archaeology," by which term Mr. Mahaffy understands early
Sicilian history, which "reaches back three hundred years, nay to three
hundred years before the advent of the Greeks." It has "only lately," it
appears, been discovered that Thucydides had no personal knowledge of
the events of that remote period, but "copied from Dionysius of
Syracuse," and hence "the whole tradition requires careful
consideration." In that case, we fear, the "high time" for deciding on
the "absolute truth" of the historian's statements will have to be
indefinitely postponed. Meantime we learn from the work before us the
striking fact, that "the night-escape of the Plateans from their city,"
as related in the third book of Thucydides, "has been reproduced in our
own day by Sir E. Creasy, in his Greek novel, _The Old Love and the
New_." It has sometimes been debated whether the Greeks had any novels:
it is now settled that they had one--written by an Englishman. It is to
be hoped that this discovery will give a new impetus to the interest in
Greek literature, which must be at a low ebb if Mr. Mahaffy be correct
in stating that "even diligent scholars find it a task to read a
dialogue of Plato honestly through." To be sure, if Plato's style and
matter were simply such as Mr. Mahaffy describes them, there would be no
great inducement to make the attempt. The same remark would apply to
most of the extant plays of Sophocles. The _Oedipus Rex_, in
particular, reveals itself in Mr. Mahaffy's analysis as a mere farrago
of inconsistencies and absurdities. In allusion to the very different
estimate of Professor Campbell, Mr. Mahaffy remarks, "Though I deeply
respect this simple-hearted enthusiasm, it does not appear to me the
best way of stimulating the study of any writer." Still, Mr. Mahaffy can
occasionally defend a Greek author against the strictures of other
critics. Thus he cannot agree with Mr. Simcox in giving "some credence
to the