[254] This was a most comprehensive addition, and fully makes up for the abrupt termination of the list of the hundred best books with two omissions. The omission of the book numbered 88 will also have been remarked. There are probably a hundred “Monatschriften der Wissenschaftlichen Vereine” or magazines of scientific societies issued in Germany. Sperling’s Zeitschriften-Adressbuch gives more than two columns of these.
[260a] The Bible can be best read in paragraph form from the Eversley edition, published by the Macmillans, or from the Temple Bible, issued by J. M. Dent—the latter an edition for the pocket. The translation of 1610 is literature and has made literature. The revised translation of our own day has neither characteristic. Something can be said for the Douay Bible in this connexion. It was published in Douay in the same year as the Protestant version appeared—1610. Certain words from it, such as “Threnes” for “Lamentations” as the Threnes of Jeremiah, have a poetical quality that deserved survival.
[260b] The Iliad may be read in a hundred verse translations of which those by Pope and Cowper are the best known. Both these may be found in Bohn’s Libraries (G. Bell & Sons); but the prose translation for which Mr. Lang and his friends are responsible (Macmillan) is for our generation far and away the best introduction to Homer for the non-Grecian.
[261a] Under the title of “The Athenian Drama,” George Allen has published three fine volumes of the works of the Greek dramatists.
[261b] Dryden’s translation of Virgil has been followed by many others both in prose and verse. There was one good prose version by C. Davidson recently issued in Laurie’s Classical Library. An interesting translation of Virgil’s Georgics into English verse was recently made by Lord Burghclere and published by John Murray. The young student, however, will do well to approach Virgil through Dryden. He will find the book in the Chandos Classics, or superbly printed in Professor Saintsbury’s edition of Dryden’s Works, Vol. XIV.
[261c] There have been many translations of Catullus. One, by Sir Richard Burton, was issued by Leonard Smithers in 1894. In Bohn’s Library there is a prose translation by Walter K. Kelly. Professor Robinson Ellis made a verse translation that has been widely praised. Grant Allen translated the Attis in 1892. On the whole, the English verse translation by Sir Theodore Martin made in 1861 (Blackwood & Son) is far and away the best suited for a first acquaintance with this the ‘tenderest of Roman Poets.’
[261d] Horace has been made the subject of many translations. Perhaps there are fifty now available. John Conington’s edition of his complete works, two volumes (Bell), is well known. The best introduction to Horace for the young student is in Sir Theodore Martin’s translation, two volumes (Blackwood), and a volume by the same author entitled Horace in “Ancient Classics for English Readers” (Blackwood) is a charming little book.
[262a] Dante’s Divine Comedy as translated by Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844) has been described by Mr. Ruskin as better reading than Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” James Russell Lowell, with true patriotism, declared that his countrymen Longfellow’s translation (Routledge) was the best. Something may be said for the prose translation by Dr. John Carlyle of the Inferno (Bell) and for Mr. A. J. Butler’s prose translation of the whole of the Divine Comedy in three volumes (Macmillan). Other translations which have had a great vogue are by Wright and Dean Plumptre. The best books on Dante are those by Dr. Edward Moore (Clarendon Press). Cary’s translation can be obtained in one volume in Bohn’s Library (Bell) or in the Chandos Classics (Warne).
[262b] I contend that while most of the poets are self-contained in a single volume, Shakspere’s plays are best enjoyed as separate entities. Certainly each of them has a library attached to it, and it is quite profitable to read Hamlet in Mr. Horace Howard Furness’s edition (Lippincott) with a multitude of criticisms of the play bound up with the text of Hamlet. But Hamlet should be read first in the Temple Shakspere (Dent) or in the Arden Shakspere (Methuen). To this last there is an admirable introduction by Professor Dowden.
[262c] Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales should be read in Mr. Alfred W. Pollard’s edition, which forms two volumes of the “Eversley Library” (Macmillan). The “Tales” may be obtained in cheaper form in the Chaucer of the Aldine Poets (Bell), of which I have grateful memories, having first read “Chaucer” in these little volumes. The enthusiast will obtain the Complete Works of Chaucer edited for the Clarendon Press by Professor W. W. Skeat.