CLASSICAL STUDIES IN ENGLAND 87 



tellectual indigestion produced by a too rash 

 indulgence in the pleasures of the library. He 

 wants to have some kind of knowledge of part 

 of Greek and Roman literature, some acquaint- 

 ance with the best that antiquity can give him ; 

 and it is all served up to him in a highly at- 

 tractive and stimulating form. So many 

 master hands are employed in cooking the 

 classics for him; there are so many books, 

 English and American, which are delightful 

 to read, and so many lecturers who present the 

 theories of the learned in an interesting way, 

 like powder in jam; new lights on Aegean civ- 

 ilization, new lights on Homer and Virgil, 

 brilliant literary appreciations of Greek 

 tragedy, any one might be beguiled by them, 

 and, of course, it is all to the good. The 

 classics have no doubt been enormously popu- 

 larized. But a classical curriculum ought not 

 to mean, primarily, reading translations, or 

 books about books: all the "Realien" and all 

 the brilliant speculations in the world are not 

 quite the same thing, do not give the same 

 mental exercise, as reading the classics for 

 one's self : and life is so short. One realizes the 



