other the kiss of peace, and submitted in silence to the blow. But Perpetua, struck in the ribs by an inexperienced gladiator, could not help screaming, and her last act was to guide his sword to a more fatal place, as if, says the narrator, the unclean spirit dared not slay so noble a woman without her own consent.

We have not left ourselves space to speak of Saturus and Felicitas, and are not sorry to leave much that is interesting untold, in order that the reader may have the more inducement to turn to the original for himself. Indeed, our original intention was only to speak of the distinctive features of this new edition of the Acts, but no matter how often one has read this story, it is hardly possible to take it up without reading it through again, and we found that the interest inspired by the story itself was far higher than that which could be felt in the manner in which it has been presented by the editor. Besides, comment on the latter would hardly have been intelligible by a reader to whom either the story was new, or in whose memory it was not fresh. This edition, however, is well worthy of special attention, as giving a Greek text, and establishing it as the original of a document previously only known in a Latin form, the originality of which had not been doubted.

For several years back it had become a commonplace with writers on ecclesiastical history to insist on the specially Latin character of the early African Church as contrasted with that of the Roman Church, in which the Greek element predominated until near the end of the second century. The idea was started in 1835 by Cardinal Wiseman with a polemical object in view. He was writing in defence of the text of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, and he thought to neutralize the negative evidence of St. Augustine by the consideration that that Father only used the Italic' form of the Latin translation, whereas the oldest form was African. He argued that the need of a Latin translation would be more felt in Africa than in Rome, where Greek was extensively used, and at first even for liturgical purposes; and he confirmed his theory of the African origin of the old Latin translation by a comparison of its Latinity with that of African writers. But the tendency of modern research has been to diminish the confidence with which we can hold Wiseman's conclusions. The peculiarities of Latinity to which he called attention would now be said not so much to distinguish African from Roman Latin, as rather colloquial from literary Latin. And we have now begun to think that Africa in the second century

did not so much differ from Rome as to the acquaintance of the higher classes with Greek. It had been known that Tertullian wrote some of his earlier tracts in Greek, yet this did not prevent its being a surprise when in 1881 Usener published Greek Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs of the year 180, and when it appeared that the extant Latin Acts of these African martyrs were but translations from this Greek. The question still remained whether this Greek itself might not have been a translation from the Latin, and it was urged that it was improbable that a trial at Carthage would have been conducted in Greek or that a Greek document would have been composed in so Latinized a city. The present work provides new data for the solution of the problem. The Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas had only been known in Latin, and no one suspected that they were a translation from the Greek until, in the discussion about the Scillitan Acts, Aubé threw out the idea, without however obtaining much acceptance for it. It is true that the Latin Acts contain a few Greek words, but it had not been thought strange that a lady of Perpetua's high position ' should have been acquainted with Greek, and should occasionally use a Greek word. But the case assumes a new aspect through Mr. Harris's discovery of what he is certainly right in pronouncing the Greek original of the Latin Acts. He found it in the library of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, the same in which, when the books were at Constantinople Bryennios discovered the complete copy of the Epistles of Clement of Rome and the Didaché; and whence also, since the restoration of the books to Jerusalem, Mr. Harris was able to publish a photographic edition of the Didaché. The originality of the Greek is proved; in the first place by a comparison of the two forms of the Latin, which in many places agree in sense, though differing in language, the explanation being that the two are independent translations from the newly discovered Greek; and in the second place by a number of instances in which difficulties in the Latin are explained by means of the Greek. One example will suffice to illustrate the nature of the argument. The Acts relate how Perpetua was for a time relieved from her father's importunity by his being obliged to travel away. When he reappears again the Greek with perfect consistency introduces him in the words παρεγένετο δὲ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἐκ τῆς πολλῆς ἀποδημίας μαραιvóuevos. The Latin has: 'supervenit autem et de civitate pater meus consumptus tædio.' It is evident that this is the work of

1 She is described as γεννηθεῖσα εὐγενῶς, καὶ τραφεῖσα πολυτελῶς γαμηθεῖσά τε ἐξόχως.

a translator who either through carelessness or through fault of his copy read ἐκ τῆς πόλεως instead of ἐκ τῆς πολλῆς, and then did not know what to make of arodnμías. Of course no conclusion could safely be drawn from a single instance, but there is quite a sufficient number of cases of the kind to establish with certainty that the Latin is a translation from the Greek.1

With regard to the question, how came the narrative to be written in Greek at all, an easy solution would present itself if we believed the Acts to be Montanist-namely, that it was so written in order to be communicated to sympathisers in Phrygia; but we believe that the true solution is to be found in adopting a theory of Zahn's, which, in spite of strong adverse prepossession, is forcing itself on our acceptance, namely, that public worship in the Church of Africa was conducted in Greek until the very end of the second century. The Acts of Martyrs furnished matter for Church reading. Those of Perpetua and Felicitas were read in Church in the time of St. Augustine, and no doubt were so read from the first; for the fact that they contained matter which might seem to favour Montanism affords a presumption that they came into Church reading before the Montanist controversy in Africa had become violent. That they also formed part of Church reading in Rome may be gathered from the exceptional appearance of the names of these non-Roman martyrs in the Canon of the Mass. Thus, while we admit. that the records of the proceedings of proconsular courts in Africa must have been Latin, we can understand how a Greek version of the Acts of the Scillitan martyrs had to be made if it was to be used for Church reading. Similarly for the Acts of Perpetua. The same argument disposes of very unreasonable doubts entertained by Mr. Harris as to the antiquity of the Latin version. The Church Service was conducted in Africa in Latin at least very early in the third century; certainly before the time of St. Cyprian. The Latin version of these Acts must be at least as old as the time when they first came to be read in Latin in church.

1 There are also cases where the Latin translation helps us to correct our copy of the Greek. Mr. Harris restores in his Greek text some words from the Latin, the omission of which was obviously due to homœoteleuton, and there are other cases besides those acknowledged by Mr. Harris. Thus we cannot doubt that Perpetua's words when she saw her father smitten on her account, Doluit mihi casus patris mei quasi ego fuissem percussa,' are genuine, though not found in the Greek. This point is noticed in an admirable review of Mr. Harris's book in the Guardian of October 29. Perhaps we are tempted to think the more highly of this review, because all the writer's judgments agree with those we had formed independently.

That must certainly have been before the year 350; how much earlier, the reader may determine.

We have one other point to touch on in conclusion. Bishop Lightfoot had noticed some coincidences between our Acts and the Ignatian Epistles which led him to believe that these Epistles must have been known to the writer of the Acts. There was no antecedent probability that the letters of a Syrian bishop should find their way to Africa, so that, though valuable testimony to the genuineness of the letters would be gained if Lightfoot's view should be established, no suspicion of spuriousness arises if it should not. Now Mr. Harris points out that on the recovery of the Greek text of the Acts their coincidences with Ignatius disappear, the coincidences being in the thoughts, not at all in the words. The result is that we can no longer press Lightfoot's argument (and a couple of his instances certainly fail), but we are not prepared to say that it is certain there is nothing in it. Men differ very much in their powers of verbal memory. We can speak with feeling, for often when we try to quote what we have read, and find ourselves unable to give more than the general sense, we have been put to the blush by others who can reproduce the very words. Now, there is a somewhat parallel case in the coincidences between our Acts and the Gospel of St. Luke. When these Acts say of Secundus, who died in prison, that though the sword did not pass through his flesh, it passed through his soul, Mr. Harris not unnaturally notes in his margin the coincidence with Luke ii. 35, yet the words in the one case are διεξῆλθεν τὸ ξίφος, in the other διελεύσεται ῥομφαία. Again, when Perpetua seeing Dinocrates in her vision says that betwixt her and him there was a great interval, Mr. Harris notes in his margin Luke xvi. 26, yet there is no verbal coincidence between μέγα διάστημα and μέγα χάσμα. Νο one can doubt that the words of the preface, 'The things we have seen and heard and handled we announce to you,' are taken from I John, yet we have ỷκovσáμŋv instead of åêŋκόαμεν, and εὐαγγελιζόμεθα instead of ἀπαγγέλλομεν.

As we have so often had to express difference of opinion with Mr. Rendel Harris, we cannot take leave of him without expressing the gratitude which students of antiquity owe him for his indefatigable industry, his fertility of suggestion, and his great ingenuity of combination. Pity it is that he must have the defects of his qualities, and that with his gifts cannot be combined greater sobriety of judgment. If anyone wishes to see how, having built one shaky story of a house of cards, he will, with the utmost calmness, put another

story upon the top of it, he has only to read the inferences he draws from the simple fact that the martyrs at their last moment gave each other the kiss, and how he proceeds thence to determine the weekday and the year of their martyrdom,

ART. V. SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The Journal of Sir Walter Scott. From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford, Two Volumes. (Edinburgh, 1890.) ACCIDENTAL circumstances have rendered our notice of these interesting volumes later than that of most of our contemporaries. We trust, however, that it may be possible, from our own point of view, to consider some of the problems suggested by them in aspects either neglected or very cursorily treated by critics who have preceded us.

What degree of information respecting Walter Scott's life and writings may be assumed on the part of our readers is, it must be owned, rather a matter of guesswork. But we can hardly go very far wrong if we venture in the first place to remind them of what may be called the outward facts of his career, and then attempt to frame some estimate of the influence of his age upon Scott's mind and of his influence in turn upon his contemporaries and their successors.

I. Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh-'mine own romantic town'—in August 1771. His father was a solicitor of that slightly higher grade known in Scotland as Writers to the Signet. The cautious temper and somewhat extreme deference to men of rank displayed by the father have been depicted by the son in the tale of Redgauntlet: Mr. Alexander Fairford, W.S., being understood to represent him. The youthful Walter inherited from his father a very real capacity for work, such as mastery of the law, and even for details of business; and if he had chosen to devote himself to such pursuits he might have succeeded in them. But physiologists, in these days, tell us a good deal about atavism; and certainly from his forbears (as the Scotch call them) the young man derived some very different qualities. The chase and the battle-field had been far more to their taste than the

1A W. S. (Latinized Signeti Regii Scriba) can authorize the application of the Royal Signet to a given document. The Solicitor of the Supreme Court (S. S. C.), though in many respects possessing equal powers, seems to enjoy less prestige than his fellow-lawyer.