public affairs, and already committed to the completion of his Aristotle (the thirty-second and last volume of which he lived to see issue from the press) by promises made to the public. As soon as the translation of Aristotle, his life-long labor of love, was finished, he told Cousin, he would undertake the revision of the translation of Plato. This constituted Barthélemy's right and title to prepare the second edition. The promise, however, made to Cousin in 1867, was not fulfilled for twenty years, on account of pressing civic duties and the demands of his Aristotelian studies. As soon as he could lay these aside, he turned at once to fulfill the long-standing promise. According to the original announcement (1822, the first volume was published in the same year) of his translation, Cousin had planned, in addition to introductions to the several Dialogues, a volume of essays on the life of Plato, the authenticity and chronology of the Dialogues, and on the Platonic philosophy and the history of its influence. According to the same announcement, the work was to be published in nine volumes. It was, however, finally published in thirteen volumes (the last one containing the Platonic apocrypha) and was completed, excepting the introduction to certain Dialogues, including the Republic and Timæus, in 1840. Cousin then turned his attention, as we said above, to the general history of philosophy and to literary biography, and his translation of Plato continued unrevised for fifty years. It must be said, however, that the translation was such a tour de force, in literary finish as well as in precision of rendering, that there was no urgent need of revision, and Barthélemy has really made very few alterations in it. Where he has made changes and they are mostly confined to slight alterations in phrase the text has gained somewhat in accuracy, while it has lost in spirit and epigram. Barthélemy has also added here and there a brief footnote, supplemented the introductions, and supplied the essay of fifty pages above mentioned, Socrate et Platon ou le Platonisme. He regards the classification and chronology of the Dialogues as largely a matter of taste, concerning the settlement of which we have no criteria even approximately incontestable, while concerning the life of Plato we have very little that is authentic. For these reasons, with a sound conservative judgment which has always characterized him in his Aristotelian studies, Barthélemy has declined to busy himself with those subtle problems in the Platonic 'higher criticism' which have long absorbed most of the Platonic scholars, and has devoted himself to the exposition of the moral and speculative verities in Socratic thought. One will not find here much that is new, but one finds a refreshing sanity and lucidity. What he says on the Socratic character, Plato's political ideals, and his adverse criticisms on the dialogic form of writing, furnish valuable new matter for the initial volume of the second edition. He had not hoped to make more than a beginning in the revision. It will not be easy for the publishers to find a scholar so well equipped for correcting the remaining twelve volumes. It is to be hoped that with reasonable time the work will be carried skilfully and thoroughly to its completion. France is not so well off for the
