discussion of the ethical principles which conduct to political well-being,' or, as Mr. Jowett somewhat differently puts it, 'not to answer questions about a future world, but to place in antagonism the true and false life, and to contrast the judgments and opinions of men with judgment according to the truth;' and that the _Symposium_ is a sketch of the course of transcendental thought and education in the science of abstract beauty, which can alone fit man for the inheritance and enjoyment of a blessed eternity;--when all this is made perfectly clear to a reader at the outset, he not only sees each dialogue in quite a new light, but what is far more important, he then only realizes why it was written, and what it was really designed to inculcate. Thus much we have said, almost apologetically, for the addition of so very much introductory matter in four octavo volumes, already of a bulk sufficient to discourage some of the less enterprising class of readers. Viewed as a literary composition, and as emanating from one who has the highest reputation for Greek scholarship, as well as for Platonism, we must plainly say that Professor Jowett's work has its serious demerits as well as its merits. The style is somewhat jaunty rather than closely faithful to the original. It is throughout far more of a paraphrase than of a translation, in the accurate sense of the word. Over the verbal difficulties, the subtle syntactical niceties, even the grammatical meaning of the more involved sentences, the author passes very lightly. He shows that unconcern for Greek, as mere Greek, that ῥᾳστώνη of an interpreter of philosophy rather than of a philosopher's very words, which we should hardly have looked for in a professor of the language. The grammarian, in fact, is so merged in the philosopher that his peculiar province has become quite secondary. No doubt considerable latitude must be conceded to those who would win the attention of purely English readers. Between the Greek and the English idioms, where no compromise can be made, the preference must be given to the latter; otherwise, the version will be, or, at least, is liable to be, somewhat stiff, pedantic, awkward, and wanting in that brilliant and genial spirit of _talk_ that the original undoubtedly had to a Greek, and which, in truth, gives the chief fascination to the exquisite and perfect language of Plato.