A New Greek Poet.

The poems of Bacchylides, which were discovered in Egypt in January, 1897, have just been published by the British Museum. Bacchylides, who is thus brought to our notice, was a contemporary and rival of Pindar and was considered by the Alexandrian critics as one of the nine greatest Greek lyric poets. Unfortunately his writings have been completely lost for fourteen hundred years and our knowledge of him has been confined to a few fragments quoted by other writers. By the discovery of this papyrus, however, which dates from 50 B. C., twenty poems of 1070 lines have been restored to us. Six of these poems are examples of a species of Greek literature of which there have hitherto been no complete specimens. There are attempts at lyrical scene-painting, without the usual celebration of a victory.