If we mistake not, Mr. Blackmore himself remarks somewhere, that the meaning of the New Testament comes out better in English than it possibly could in Greek; similarly, we prefer Blackmore's 'Georgics' to Virgil's. As we have here no space for anything like critical discussion, we prefer to quote the beautiful lines with which the translator apologises for his temerity. 'Indulgence have ye for a gardener's dream (A man with native melody unblest)! How patient toil and love that does its best, Clouds though they be, may follow the sunbeam. 'And in this waning of poetic day, With all so misty, moonlit, and grotesque, 'Tis sweet to quit that medley picturesque, And chase the sunset of a clearer ray. 'Too well I know, by fruitless error taught, How latent beauty hath fallacious clues, How difficult to catch, how quick to lose The mirage of imaginative thought. 'And harder still to make that vision bear The loose refraction of a modern tongue, To render sight to hearing, old to young, And fix my purview on an English ear. 'Too well I know, by gardener's hopes misled, How cheap are things which long have cost me dear; And though I fail to graft the poet here, No wilding branches may I flaunt instead. 'But yonder, lo, my amethysts and gold, So please you--grapes and apricots--constrain These more accustomed hands; unless ye deign To tend with me the kine and beeves of old.' The pregnant felicity of this prelude will show better than any criticism Mr. Blackmore's poetic capacity. _Ancient Classics for English Readers. The Commentaries of Cæsar._ By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. _Horace._ By THEODORE MARTIN. _Æschylus._ By REGINALD S. COPLESTON. _Xenophon._ By Sir ALEXANDER GRANT. Edited by Rev. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. Blackwood and Sons.