The Classical Journal, Vol. 28: For September and December, 1823 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Classical Journal, Vol. 28: For September and December, 1823

To propriety of selection it is particularly requisite that a com piler of such works devote his attention. Nor is it only necessary that he advert to the character of his author as a writer of talent, purity, and information. He must also carefully adjust the ex tent of his extract, so as to set before the student a suitable spe cimen of the whole, and afford him at once the opportunity of ac quiring a knowledge of the idiom and structure of the language, and the peculiar style and character of the writer. Nor is it proper that he consult merely his own taste in making these extracts. Like a skilful caterer, he must provide entertainment for various appetites, and therefore the fare must consist of wart-06mm? I fic'qupara ral fipthpara. In this respect Prof. Dalzell seems to have consulted too exclusively his own judgment. We allow, indeed, that he shewed both a correct taste and i sound judgment in his selec tions. For what historian pleases more than Xenophon, danomi nated by the ancients the Attic bee, rou mu dvro films-ans pelleros ykvmw fieev abén 1 But circumstanced as he was, he should not have limited the extracts from Thu'cydides to 12 pa 3, nor those of Plato to 21, whilst to Xenophon he allotted no ess than 118. This was neither appreciating justly the merits of the accurate hie toriau, nor duly reverencing the wisdom of the divine philosopher and it was acting injudiciously as a compiler.

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