a modern one; that is Lang's translation of Theocritus, a tiny little book, but very precious of its kind. You see I am mentioning very few; but these few would mean a great deal for you, should you use them properly. Among later Greek work, work done in the decline of the old civilization, there is one masterpiece that the world will never become tired of—I mentioned it before, the story of Daphnis and Chloe. This has been translated into every language, and I am sorry to say that the best translation is not English, but French—the version of Amyot. But there are many English translations. That book you certainly ought to read. About the Latin authors, it is not here necessary to say much. There are very good prose translations of Virgil and Horace, but the value of these to you cannot be very great without a knowledge of Latin. However, the story of the Æneid is necessary to know, and it were best read in the version of Conington. In the course of your general education it is impossible to avoid learning something regarding the chief Latin writers and thinkers; but there is one immortal book that you may not have often seen the name of; and it is a book everybody should read—I mean the Golden Ass of Apuleius. You have this in a good English translation. It is only a story of sorcery, but one of the most wonderful stories ever written, and it belongs to world literature rather than to the literature of a time.
But the Greek myths, although eternally imperishable in their beauty, are not more intimately related to English literature than are the myths of the ancient English religion, the religion of the Northern races, which has left its echoes all through our forms of speech, even in the names of the days of the week. A student of English literature ought to know something about Northern mythology. It is full of beauty also, beauty of another and stranger kind; and it embodies one of the noblest warrior-faiths that ever existed,
