Among the episodes from Caesar's De Bello Gallico that strike a Dutchman most (and this will equally apply to the English, I suppose) are those that treat of the sea. When we read how at the landing in Britain the Roman ships are too large to reach the coast, and how the soldiers leap from the vessels and wade fighting through the water, we can vividly imagine such a scene. Not that we see troops land every day, all Dutchmen are acquainted with the North Sea and its flat beach, so that a perusal of this passage evokes familiar ideas. Personally I find the episode of Caesar's campaign against the maritime States in Brittany very interesting. Now we discover a very similar situation in our own regions, then again we come across differences. Driven by a desire for personal observation we set out to this part of France during the summer holidays to see if Caesar's description agrees with the present situation, and how far the aspect of modern Brittany elucidates the passage in Caesar. And this has in no small measure proved to be the case.

Tiberius was taking exercise in the water-garden. He had dismissed his attendants and given orders that he was not to be disturbed; with bent head and brooding pace he passed and repassed the fountain, finding no solace in its pleasant sound for the unpleasing memories that chafed him. ‘Slaves! born slaves!’ he muttered as he walked. It is a hard fate to love liberty and justice, and to be at once the guardian and the ruin of both. A shout of laughter broke his meditations, and a cry from several voices, ‘Bravo! Do it again.’ Tiberius frowned; but the disturbance ceased before he had decided that it must be stopped. He went on walking, and was once more sunk in troubled cogitation when the noise broke out afresh. Brief as before, it nevertheless put an end this time to all hope of quiet thought: to expect interruption is to be all the while disturbed. Now really angry, for nature and training alike were affronted by this disregard of his command and of his comfort, Tiberius turned towards the sound, not without curiosity, for it came from the audience-chamber, usually deserted at this hour. His rapid entrance was unobserved, so intent was the group of household servants at the other end. It is a rare experience for an emperor to remain unnoticed, and Tiberius found his anger subsiding into ironic amusement as he approached them from behind and no one turned. His great height enabled him to look over their heads and see a young slave mouthing and gesticulating in a manner that struck him as familiar. It was very like—yes, surely it was an imitation in dumb show of the speaker he had last heard that morning in the courts.

The object of this article is to plead that Lucan is an underrated poet, and well worth reading at length. It is assumed that many readers of Greece and Rome have not read more than, at most, books i and vii, and such other pieces as may have met them from time to time in unseens.

Amidst the conflict of opposing forces in these twenty years since the Armistice—social, political, literary, economic—one of the most acutely debated questions emerging from the tumult is, In what faith (if any) can an intelligent man and woman believe? The large popular demand for books on religion and its relation to art, psychology, reality, politics, and ethics, together with frequent written or broadcast pronouncements by responsible religious authorities, leave no doubt about the increased interest in non-material problems. Popular articles appear in the evening papers by deans, bishops, and laymen, and even sporting ‘stars’ appear in print with religious views. Furthermore, we hear the Voice of Under Thirty accompanying Nero amid the wreckage of ideals and faith, whose validity would seem to have died with Queen Victoria.

It is a commonplace that Greek drama is more intellectual than modern. We look for marks of this intellectualism in the speeches, the dialogue, the characterization, the method of supplying relief of tension in the most tragic situations, and the maintaining of the old convention by which action takes place off the stage, so that the interest of the audience is sustained by vividness and clarity of narrative rather than by actual portrayal of incident; but we seldom look for it in the actual construction of the dramas. Yet here too it can be seen. A good example is Euripides' Troades, which is but a poorly constructed play, if judged by standards which require a play to have a plot founded on incident, but not so poorly constructed if a theme be allowed to take the place of a plot.

It will be agreed, I think, that the reading of Virgil is an indispensable part of the school Latin course, especially for the Sixth Form. Assuming that Virgil will continue to be set for the School Certificate Examination, I suggest that the following ideas are feasible. At all events they are the result of experience gained in Fifth and Sixth Form work.