Wilkins's introduction tends to disencumber his commentary and its notes of digressive and indirect matter; and the result is highly favourable to the due mastery of the sense and gist of the oration by the patient student. Every passage has its critical difficulties explained; every uncommon construction or use of a word is noted; every antithesis is pointed out by the observant editor. In the first class may be instanced the use in c. ii. of _vectigalibus_ in the masculine gender for _tributaries_, which has its parallel in § 45; in the third the contrast in c. iii., between "In Asiæ luce h.e," "in the foreground of Asia," _lux_ being used of what is present to the eyes of all, and open to extensive commerce, as opposed to "_Ponti latebris_," as the hiding-place of Mithridates is termed just before. In the same chapter there is an antithesis, as is well shown in the description of past generals having carried off _insignia victoriæ, non victoriam_, "only triumphs, not a victory;" and as a sample of other notes dealing with fiscal duties and such like, we may notice those in c. vi., on "ubertate agrorum" "magnitudine pastionis," and the sources of revenue farmed by the "publicani." In the same passage _scriptura_ is the "rent for pasturage," and _custodiis_ (§ 16) = "coastguard posts, to prevent vessel unloading unless at the emporia where there were custom-houses." For _publicanis omissis_, a despaired-of reading in c. vii. § 18, the editor adopts the conjecture _publicanorum bonis_ or _fortunis amissis_; and indeed seldom fails in the likeliest cure for a corrupt word or text. Incidentally he is rich in rules for orthography, as where on "tot milibus" he cites Lachmann (Lucret. i. 313) for the use of the single _l_ where a long _i_ is followed by a short one in the next syllable; nor does he fail to note any memorable change of construction, _e.g._, where in c. xiii. in the sentence, "_Hiemis_ enim non _avaritiæ_ perfagium majores nostri in sociorum atque amicorum tectis esse voluerunt," we have a change from the objective to the subjective genitive, "a refuge _from_ the winter, not _for_ avarice." But enough has been said to signify the merit of this handbook; and we must deal more briefly with such other Latin volumes as are still on our list. * * * * *