riters, and hitherto deemed entirely lost. They furnish,
according to the accounts in the journals, an extensive list of proper
names calculated to throw great light upon many obscure periods of
history. Among these volumes, it is said, some are calculated to give a
complete interpretation of hieroglyphic writing--the discoverer having
already successfully applied them to the interpretation of the
inscriptions engraved on the obelisk of the Hippodrome at
Constantinople. This may be quite true, but such statements are to be
received with some suspicion.

* * * * *

A literal prose translation of Homer, by Mr. T. A. Buckley, has just
appeared in London. No prose version will cause any just notion of the
spirit of Homer. Of the half dozen metrical translations published
recently, we think that of our countryman Munford the best. Henry W.
Herbert has given us parts of the Iliad in admirable style. No one,
however, has yet equalled old Chapman--certainly not Pope nor Cowper.
The most successful translation into a modern language is unquestionably
the German one by Voss. Mure and Grote have written the ablest
dissertations in English upon the Homeric controversy, but they are not
poets, and could not if they would translate the great bard.

* * * * *

R. P. GILLIES, a contemporary of the great authors of the last age, has
published in three volumes _Memoirs of a Literary Veteran_. More than
half a century spent in the society of the lions of literature, could
hardly fail to furnish a store of amusing anecdotes, and a sprinkling of
interesting information. Mr. Gillies has also this advantage over many
collectors of similar reminiscences, that he was not only an author
among authors, but that his social position in early life gave him
access to the best circles. Scott, Wordsworth, Campbell, the Ettrick
Shepherd, Rogers, Galt, Maginn, Haydon, and many more names of interest,
figure frequently in his pages. Upon the whole, however, his work is
tedious, and quite too much occupied with matters that can be
entertaining only to his most intimate associates. Gillies was one of
the early contributors to "Blackwood," and figured as "Kemperhausen" in
the _Noctes Ambrosianae_. He was also the originator and first editor of
the Foreign Quarterly Review, and was one of the first to make German
literature familiar in England.

* * * * *

It a