DR. Farnell's article on the Prometheus (JHS. liii, 40) demands serious attention, not only for the sake of the play and of Aeschylus himself, but also because it raises a question of fundamental importance to criticism.

Dr. Farnell divided the critics of the Prometheus into two groups. There are those who have surveyed the soul and mind, not to mention the language, of the poet to the last square yard, and have proved that Aeschylus never wrote the play at all. These heroes of scientific criticism, to whom Dr. Farnell has done curt justice, need not detain us; οὐ γὰρ φοβερὀν οὐδὲἐλεεινὸν τοῦτο, ἀλλὰ μιαρόν ἐστιν. Then there are the ordinary commentators on the play, who ‘through their lack of familiarity with Greek or Comparative Religion’ have missed its real significance. ‘Ο μεταξὺ ἄρα τούτων λοιπός, and he is Dr. Farnell, whose knowledge of Comparative Religion told him that Aeschylus could not have written this play, while his literary sense told him that Aeschylus did. The impasse is complete, and it is the signal merit of Dr. Farnell's article that it brings the dilemma into the open and states it with a fullness and a force almost worthy of the first play of an Aeschylean trilogy.