or misery of numbers are sufficiently important to interest us in their behalf, nor because internal elevation of sentiment must be clothed with external dignity, to claim our honour and admiration. The Greek tragedians paint the downfall of kingly houses without any reference to the condition of the people; they show us the man in the king, and, far from veiling their heroes from our sight in their purple mantles, they allow us to look through their vain splendour, into a bosom torn and harrowed up by passions. That the regal pomp was not so necessary as the heroic costume is evident, not only from the practice of the ancients, but from the tragedies of the moderns having a reference to the throne, produced under different circumstances, namely the existence of monarchical government. They dare not draw from existing reality, for nothing is less suitable for tragedy than a court, and a court life. Where they do not therefore paint an ideal kingdom with distant manners, they fall into stiffness and formality, which are much more destructive to freedom and boldness of character, and to deep pathos, than the narrow circle of private life.

A few mythological fables only seem originally marked out for tragedy: such, for example, as the long-continued alternation of aggressions, vengeance, and maledictions, which we witness in the house of Atreus. When we examine the names of the pieces which are lost, we have great difficulty in conceiving how the mythological fables on which they are founded, as they are known to us, could afford sufficient materials for the developement of an entire tragedy. It is true, the poets, in the various relations of the same story, had a great amplitude of selection; and this very variety justified them in going still farther, and making considerable alterations in the circumstances of an event, so that the inventions added to one piece sometimes contradict the accounts given by the same poet in another. We are, however, principally to ascribe the productiveness of mythology, for the tragic art, to the principle which we observe so powerful throughout the whole historical range of Grecian cultivation; namely, that the power which preponderated for the time assimilated everything to itself. As the heroic fables, in all their deviations, were easily developed into the tranquil fulness and light variety of epic poetry, they were afterwards adapted to the object which the tragedians proposed to accomplish, by earnestness, energy, and compression; and what in this change of destination appeared inapplicable to tragedy still afforded materials for a sort of half sportive, though ideal representation, in the subordinate walk of the satirical drama.

I shall be forgiven, I hope, if I attempt to illustrate the above

reflections on the essence of the ancient tragedy, by a comparison borrowed from the plastic arts, which will, I trust, be found somewhat more than a mere fanciful allusion.

The Homeric epic is, in poetry, what half-raised workmanship is in sculpture, and tragedy the distinctly separated group.

The poem of Homer sprung from the soil of the traditionary tale, is not yet purified from it, as the figures of a bas-relief are borne by a back-ground which is foreign to them. These figures appear depressed, and in the epic poem all is painted as past and remote. In the bas-relief they are generally thrown into profile, and in the epic characterized in the most artless manner: they are, in the former, not properly grouped, but follow one another; and the Homeric heroes, in like manner, advance singly in succession before us. It has been remarked that the Iliad is not definitively closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to precede and to follow. The bas-relief is equally boundless, and may be continued ad infinitum, either from before or behind, on which account the ancients preferred the selection of those objects for it, which admitted of an indefinite extension, as the trains at sacrifices, dances, and rows of combatants, &c. Hence they also exhibited bas-reliefs on round surfaces, such as vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where the two ends are withdrawn from our sight by the curvature, and where, on our advancing, one object appears as another disappears. The reading of the Homeric poetry very much resembles such a circumgiration, as the present object alone arrests our attention, while that which precedes and follows is allowed to disappear.

But in the distinctly formed group, as in tragedy, sculpture poetry bring before our eyes an independent and definite whole. To separate it from natural reality, the former places it on a base, as on an ideal ground. It also removes as much as possible all foreign and accidental accessaries, that the eye may wholly rest on the essential objects, the figures themselves. These figures are wrought into the most complete rounding, yet they refuse the illusion of colours, and announce by the purity and uniformity of the mass of which they are constructed, a creation not endowed with perishable life, but of a higher and more elevated character.

Beauty is the object of sculpture, and repose is most advantageous for the display of beauty. Repose alone, therefore, is suitable to the figure. But a number of figures can only be connected together and grouped by one action. The group represents beauty in motion, and the object of it is to combine both in the highest degree. This can only be effected when the artist finds means, in the most violent bodily or mental anguish, to

50

LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE.

moderate the expression by manly resistance, calm grandeur, or inherent sweetness, in such a manner that, with the most moving truth, the features of beauty shall yet in nowise be disfigured. The observation of Winkelmann on this subject is inimitable. He says that beauty with the ancients was the tongue on the balance of expression, and in this sense the groups of Niobe and Laocoön are master-pieces; the one in the sublime and serious, the other in the learned and ornamental style.

The comparison with ancient tragedy is the more apposite here, as we know that both Eschylus and Sophocles produced a Niobe, and that Sophocles was also the author of a Laocoön. In Laocoon the conflicting sufferings and anguish of the body, and the resistance of the soul, are balanced with the most wonderful equilibrium. The children calling for help, tender objects of our compassion, and not of our admiration, draw us back to the appearance of the father, who seems to turn his eyes in vain to the gods. The convolving serpents exhibit to us the inevitable destiny which unites together the characters in so dreadful a manner. And yet the beauty of proportion, the delightful flow of the attitude, are not lost in this violent struggle; and a representation the most frightful to the senses is yet treated with a degree of moderation, while a mild breath of sweetness is diffused over the whole.

In the group of Niobe there is also the most perfect mixture of terror and pity. The upturned looks of the mother, and the mouth half open in supplication, seem to accuse the invisible wrath of Heaven. The daughter, clinging in the agonies of death to the bosom of her mother, in her infantine innocence can have no other fear than for herself: the innate impulse of self-preservation was never represented in a manner more tender and affecting. Can there on the other hand be exhibited to the senses a more beautiful image of self-devoting heroic magnanimity than Niobe, as she bends her body forwards, that if possible she may alone receive the destructive bolt? Pride and repugnance are melted down in the most ardent maternal love. The more than earthly dignity of the features are the less disfigured by pain, as from the quick repetition of the shocks she appears, as in the fable, to have become insensible and motionless. But before this figure, twice transformed into stone, and yet so inimitably animated,—before this line of demarcation of all human suffering, the most callous beholder is dissolved in tears.

In all the agitation produced by the sight of these groups, there is still somewhat in them which invites us to composed contemplation; and in the same manner, the tragedy of the ancients leads us, even in the course of the representation, to the most elevated reflections on our existence, and those mysteries in our destiny which can never wholly be explained.

LECTURE IV.

Progress of the tragic art among the Greeks-Their different styles-Eschylus -Connexion in a trilogy of Æschylus—His remaining works-Life and poetical character of Sophocles-Character of his different tragedies.

Or the inexhaustible stores possessed by the Greeks in the department of tragedy, which the public competition at the Athenian festivals called into being, as the rival poets always contended for a prize, very little indeed has come down to us. We only possess works of three of their numerous tragedians, Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and these in no proportion to the number of their compositions. The three authors in question were selected by the Alexandrian critics as the foundation for the study of ancient Grecian literature, not because they alone were deserying of estimation, but because they afforded the best illustration of the various styles of tragedy. Of each of the two oldest poets, we have seven remaining pieces; in these however we have, according to the testimony of the ancients, several of their most distinguished productions. Of Euripides we have a much greater number, and we might well exchange many of them for other works which are now lost; for example, the satirical dramas of Achæus, Eschylus, and Sophocles, several pieces of Phrynichus for the sake of comparison with Eschylus, or of Agathon, whom Plato describes as effeminate, but sweet and affecting, and who was a contemporary of Euripides though somewhat younger.

We leave to antiquarians the car of the strolling Thespis, the competition for a he-goat, from which the name of tragedy was derived, the visages of the first improvisatoré actors smeared over with lees, that they may ascertain the rude beginnings from which Eschylus, by one gigantic stride, gave that dignified character to tragedy under which it appears in his works, and shall proceed immediately to the consideration of the poets themselves.

The tragic style (giving to the word style the sense which it receives in the plastic arts, and not the exclusive signification in writing) of Eschylus is grand, severe, and not unfrequently hard: in the style of Sophocles we observe the most complete proportion and harmonious sweetness: the style of Euripides is soft and luxuriant; extravagant in his easy fulness, he sacrifices the general effect to brilliant passages. From the analogy which the undisturbed developement of the fine arts among the Greeks

everywhere offers to us, we may compare the epochs of tragic art to those of sculpture. Eschylus is the Phidias of the tragic art, Sophocles the Polycletus, and Euripides the Lysippus. Phidias formed sublime images of the gods, but he was still attached to the extrinsic magnificence of materials; and he surrounded their majestic repose with images of the most violent struggles. Polycletus carried the art to perfection, and hence one of his statues was called the rule of beauty. Lysippus distinguished himself by the fire of his works; but in his time sculpture had deviated from its original destination, and was much more desirous of expressing the charm of motion and life than of adhering to ideality of form.

Eschylus is to be considered as the creator of tragedy, which sprung from him completely armed, like Pallas from the head of Jupiter. He clothed it in a state of suitable dignity, and gave it an appropriate place of exhibition; he was the inventor of scenic pomp, and not only instructed the chorus in singing and dancing, but appeared himself in the character of a player. He was the first who gave developement to the dialogue, and limits to the lyrical part of the tragedy, which still however occupies too much space in his pieces. He draws his characters with a few bold and strongly marked features. The plans are simple in the extreme: he did not understand the art of enriching and varying an action, and dividing its developement and catastrophe into parts, bearing a due proportion to each other. Hence his action often stands still, and this circumstance becomes still more apparent, from the undue extension of his choral songs. But all his poetry betrays a sublime and serious mind. Terror is his element, and not the softer affections; he holds up the head of Medusa to his astonished spectators. His manner of treating fate is austere in the extreme: he suspends it over the heads of mortals in all its gloomy majesty. The cothurnus of Eschylus has as it were an iron weight: gigantic figures alone stalk before our eyes. It seems as if it required an effort in him, to condescend to paint mere men to us: he abounds most in the representation of gods, and seems to dwell with particular delight in exhibiting the Titans, those ancient gods who signify the dark powers of primitive nature, and who had long been driven into Tartarus beneath a better regulated world. He endeavours to swell out his language to a gigantic sublimity, corresponding with the standard of his characters. Hence he abounds in harsh combinations and overstrained epithets, and the lyrical parts of his pieces are often obscure in the extreme, from the involved nature of the construction. He resembles Dante and Shakspeare in the very singular cast of his images and expressions. These images are nowise