These notes were compiled for a lecture to the grocersapos; assistants and apprentices of Liverpool, early in 1910, but have been revised and somewhat elaborated.

Let us begin by defining our subject. What are Groceries? The con-tents of a grocerapos;s shop are various, and some are common to grocersapos; shops and more special establishments. Some of these (1) are perhaps not strictly ‘groceries’ at all, (2) are absent from early lists of groceries; e.g. tea and coffee, which formerly had their own ‘warehousemen’, and this process of encroachment and regrouping still goes on. What then are the sources and the purposes of all these? Every business of supply is a matter of adapting means to ends. The ends are not set by the business man, but by the public, the customers. The means also are not created by the business man; they exist, or are made, elsewhere and among other peoples. The business man is the middleman who organizes the supply to meet the demand for something which the consumer either cannot supply for himself or only at a disproportionate and therefore unbusiness-like effort.

In looking, therefore, at the early history of what was to become a ‘grocery’ business, we are asking three questions: as to the purposes which groceries serve, the sources which fulfil them, and the methods by which the ‘grocer’ adjusts supply to demand. In a modern grocer's shop, then, we may classify its contents in respect of the purposes which they serve, and the means which fulfil these ends.

AT the beginning of the twentieth century in Denmark, as in many other countries, the secondary school (since 1903 called ‘gymnasium’) underwent a fundamental reform. Until that time the secondary-school period had been six years, and Latin had been a subject in it. All pupils had to learn Latin for four years. The last two school-years the pupils could choose between two sides: a linguistic-historical one, with much Latin and Greek (the Greek course being of four years), and a scientific one, a division which was due to J. N. Madvig, the famous Danish latinist, whose influence on the practical organization of Danish schools was enormous through the greater part of the nineteenth century (he was for many years Inspector of Schools and for some years also Minister of Education). By the new law of 1903 the teaching of Latin and Greek was greatly reduced. The gymnasium got at that time the structure which it retains to this day: after a four years' middle school there is a three years' gymnasium, divided into three sides: classics (with Latin and Greek), modern languages (with English and German culture and language), and scientific (with mathematics and science). At the time when this organization of the gymnasium was carried through, the leading spirits of the reform (among whom again a well-known latinist, M. Cl. Gertz, was a primus motor) clearly saw that it would be an irreparable loss if the university men of the future were without the slightest knowledge of antiquity and its importance to modern European culture. Therefore, when they planned the scheme of the gymnasium, they introduced for all pupils of the secondary school one lesson a week throughout the three years which was to be consecrated to Greek literature and art. It was at once made an independent subject in the gymnasium, with marks, examinations, etc., as all other subjects.

From the Middle Ages to the end of the nineteenth century the teaching of Latin in England emphasized grammar and the formal aspects of language at the expense of subject-matter and of the general background of civilization. The tradition continued into the twentieth century and is still not dead. Protests against this formalizing and grammaticizing of a potentially liberal subject have been made regularly, at least from Elyot onwards. ‘By what time he [the pupil] cometh to the most sweet and pleasant reading of old authors, the spark of fervent desire of learning is extinct with the burthen of grammar’ (Governour, Book I. x). Milton, in the Tractate, writes: ‘Language is but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known.… We do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much miserable Latin and Greek as might be learnt easily and delightfully in one year’ (ed. Morris, p. 5). Locke makes a similar complaint (Thoughts, para. 165 ff.). During England's classical age protests were fewer; for the end—familiarity with Latin and Greek literature (or rather with a fairly narrow selection of it)—was so desirable that it justified the means, however unpleasant. In the nineteenth century the volume of protest grew again and was reinforced by the partisans of science; notably Spencer and Huxley. But the linguistic tradition was strengthened rather than weakened, at least for the time being; for its supporters, rationalizing their prejudices in the face of attack, conjured up the various mental-training arguments which ever since have confused the whole issue of the value of Latin in education.

L'impérialisme athénien, by Jacqueline de Romilly, recently published, is an important contribution to Thucydidean studies; and as foreign books usually not only cost more but take longer to read, it may save time and money to give here a summary of the argument.

The authoress intends her discussion of the main theme to throw light on the vexed question of the genesis of the History; but with this part of the work we are less concerned. It will be enough to say that she believes Thucydides to have been aware of the ἀληθ∊στἁτη πρóφασıς right from the start (roughly, because the events narrated at the beginning of Bk. II, obviously pre-415, exactly correspond to the phraseology of the speeches at the end of Bk. I, which imply that πρóφασıς); that the subsequent insertions are the Pentekontaetia, the second part of the Athenian's speech at Sparta, the Funeral Oration, Pericles' last speech and obituary notice, details of Brasidas (clearly post-Lysander) in Bk. IV, the personality of Alcibiades, and the Melian Dialogue; and that these insertions were made after 404, when the disastrous end of the war unloosed attacks on the Periclean régime.

Her main argument, however, is that Thucydides' real subject was the Athenian Empire; because (i) the ‘real cause’ was Athenian imperialism, which alarmed Sparta; (ii) it is the background to every major event described (e.g. Plataea, Mytilene, Pylos, Sicily); (iii) the speeches fall into two classes: attack on or defence of the Empire; (iv) he ignores home-politics, because in fact party-differences were only one of degree between extreme and moderate imperialists; (v) the work is a homogeneous unit, whereas many never came to regard the war as one (e.g. Andocides, Pax 9; Aeschines, de F.L. 176); and (vi) the two factors which Pericles selected as guaranteeing victory—the fleet and the treasury—are the same as those on which her empire rested.

According to Elliot Smith, the dragon ‘is most intimately associated with the earliest stratum of divinities, for it has been homologized with each of the members of the earliest Trinity, the Great Mother, the Water God, and the Warrior Sun God, both individually and collectively. To add to the complexities of the story, the dragon-slayer is also represented by the same deities, either individually or collectively; and the weapon with which the hero slays the dragon is also homologous both with him and his victim, for it is animated by him who wields it, and its powers of destruction make it a symbol of the same power of evil which it itself destroys.’

Wherever it is found the dragon displays a special partiality for water. It dwells in pools or wells or in the clouds on the tops of mountains, or at the bottom of the sea where it guards vast treasures, or even on the top of a high mountain. It has the same characteristics everywhere, for the dragon of the North is essentially the same as that of the South and the East, an evil power, guarding hoards and withholding good things from men. ‘The slaying of a dragon is the achievement of heroes—of Siegmund, of Beowulf, of Sigurd, of Arthur, of Tristram…But if in the West the dragon is usually a “power of evil”, in the far East he is equally emphatically a symbol of beneficence. He is identified with emperors and kings; he is the son of heaven, the bestower of all bounties.’

It has been a commonplace for centuries that there is much more in Martial than scurrility. Yet to those who do not read him his name is probably still synonymous with a certain type of crude and monotonous jesting: to that extent at least he has been unfortunate. The jests, brilliantly phrased and pointed, are plain enough, but (quite apart from the reasonable assumption that he had to make them or starve) it is not mere wishful thinking which compels his admirers to maintain that the true man is not to be found there. For to many he is one of the most human and companionable of Latin authors, and they return with perennial delight to his descriptions of country life, his friends and amusements, his troubles and disappointments, his whole lively picture of the world of his day. Critics have remarked at length on his perpetual brilliance, his complete mastery of language, and it would be pointless to draw attention once again to the superb craftsmanship and exquisite polish which characterize every line of his best work.

‘No other poet in any language has the same never-failing grace and charm and brilliance, the same arresting ingenuity, an equal facility and finish.’ So Mr. H. W. Garrod in a well-known essay. And it is a verdict from which few will dissent.

For all that, it may be argued that there is still one further aspect of Martial's genius, or character, which has received something less than its rightful share of attention; a quality of mind difficult to define in set terms, but which perhaps may be tentatively described as tenderness; a sensitive and warm sympathy; above all, an almost painful awareness of the swiftly passing beauty of childhood and the bitterness of the death which comes too soon.