represents two blows, and Conington agrees. But even if the interpretation were acceptable in itself, it is ruled out by the fact that two lines of perfectly connected sense immediately follow. The actual infliction of the wound is omitted' (Henry). Mr. J. H. Vince refers me to the last scene of Othello for a curious parallel to Conington's interpretation of sic, sic. It has been suggested that Othello stabs Desdemona as he says, 'so, so,' because she speaks thrice afterwards, which she might do if stabbed, but not if she were suffocated. 669.-Mr. Glover reminds us1 that there were great historic sieges of both Tyre and Carthage. Tyre fell before Alexander in August, 332. The simile is based upon Iliad XXII. 410, 411, where the Trojans are watching the outrage to Hector's body. 681.-The Oxford text takes crudelis as a vocative, and so did Fanshawe. In assuming it to be nominative I have followed the big battalions, though not wholly convinced that they are right. 683. ABLUAM is a jussive subjunctive dependent on date in the sense of 'grant' or 'permit.' If proof is needed, it is given by Professor Housman in Classical Review XVI. 282, where he quotes from Ausonius, Ephemeris, ii, 5, 6: 'Da rore fontano abluam Manus et os et lumina. Conington lends the weight of his authority to the remarkable view that date volnera lymphis is a 'Virgilian inversion' for date lymphas volneribus, and abluam a future indicative. Fanshawe's translation here is no translation at all. 684.-The Romans caught the breath of dying friends in their mouths, and so received into themselves the soul of the departed. The same custom is said to be still practised in Lancashire." Servius quotes Cicero, Verrines, II. 5, 45: Henry and others quote Ovid, Met. XII. 424, 425: 'Impositaque manu volnus fovet oraque ad ora admovet atque animae fugienti obsistere temptat.' La Cerda illustrates the custom very freely. 689.-Had Henry been a surgeon instead of a physician, he could hardly have passed the phrase infixum stridit sub pectore volnus without a word. Sargeaunt strangely takes the meaning to be that the sword (volnus) grates against the ribs. Mr. Page says that it is not clear what sound stridit represents, but it clearly indicates the painfulness of her breathing.' This is wrong too. Fanshawe takes refuge in a lamentable conceit. Mr. Mackail is perfectly right with his 'gurgles.' It was one of the words used by a surgeon of much experience to describe the often plainly audible sound of a lung-wound. If literary authority is required (which it is not), it may be found in Colonel Henry Ponsonby's narrative of a 1 Frazer, Golden Bough3, Part III., The Dying God, p. 200. Pope, though he never thought that the proper study for mankind was anthropology, yet borrowed this idea and makes his Eloïsa wish that Abelard may 'suck her last breath and catch her flying soul.' night on the field of Waterloo, quoted in Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. Virgil has been criticized unfavourably for his realism in describing wounds, both here and on the battlefield. I have long believed that his uncompromising fidelity, which we may call brutality if we will, is simply a sign of his own hatred of war and scenes of violence. Like Euripides in the Troades, he wishes us to see these things as they are. In the later books of the Aeneid he rarely shows the smallest gusto in the fighting, but he is infinitely conscientious about it. 693-705. The last pages of Miss Matthaei's wellknown paper on the Fates, etc., in the Aeneid1 are concerned with the suicide of Dido. Jupiter must submit to the fates, but man has 'the strange and tragic power' of defeating them by self-annihilation. Dido perishes nec fato merita nec morte, not in the course of nature, nor by a death which her acts had made inevitable. The cutting of the lock is suggested by Alcestis, 74-76,2 where Death himself performs the act of consecration, as Iris here. For Iris and the rainbow see some remarks in Warde Fowler's Roman Essays and Interpretations, p. 191. 704, 705. 'OMNIS ET UNA DILAPSUS CALOR, ATQUE IN VENTOS VITA RECESSIT.' 1 Classical Quarterly, Vol. IX. (1917), pp. 23-26. 2 It has not been remarked in these notes, but it is abundantly clear that much study of Euripides went to the making of the fourth book of the Aeneid. Virgil, when describing death or unconsciousness, shows supreme skill in these dying cadences. Compare V. 854-856, where Palinurus drops asleep: 'Ecce deus ramum Lethaeo rore madentem vique soporatum Stygia super utraque quassat In IX. 444-445, where Nisus dies on the body of 'Tum super exanimum sese proiecit amicum Confossus, placidaque ibi demum morte quievit.' In the last grand lines of the epic he gives a totally different effect, the physical collapse in one line and the departure of the angry soul in the next : 'Hoc dicens ferrum adverso sub pectore condit APPENDIX IN the foregoing notes I have constantly referred to Henry's Aeneidea, but seldom quoted from it, because to do so would have added much to the length of this book: Henry is, so far as my experience goes, not a writer who lends himself to brief quotation. But his book is unique among classical commentaries, and as it is also an expensive rarity, it seemed to me worth while to say something about the man and his work. The facts are taken from the Dictionary of National Biography and from an obituary notice written by his friend J. P. Mahaffy in the Academy for August 12, 1876. James Henry was born at Dublin in 1798. After winning the gold medal for classical studies at Trinity College, he set up in practice as a doctor. Here as everywhere he showed a marked individuality. He asserted that no doctor's opinion was worth a guinea, and fixed his own fee at five shillings, which had to be paid in silver: he gave no change, neither would he take money for drugs. His methods naturally led to plentiful controversy with other members of his profession. Before he reached the age of fifty a large legacy set him free to indulge, without rival claims, his passion for the Aeneid, to which he had already given his leisure for some |