igone at the end, one of the most simply striking
in any play, has, scientifically speaking, no place in the tragedy,
which should already have been brought to its conclusion. Amid the
multitude of the beauties of the irregular Euripides, it is obvious to
notice the characters of Alcestis and the Clytemnestra of the
_Electra_; the soliloquies of _Medea_; the picturesque situation of
Ion, the minister of the Pythian temple; the opening scene of the
_Orestes_; and the dialogues between Phaedra and her attendant in the
_Hippolytus_, and the old man and Antigone in the _Phoenissae_;--passages
which are either unconnected with the development of the plot, or of
an importance superior to it. Thus the Greek drama, as a fact, was
modelled on no scientific principle. It was a pure recreation of the
imagination, revelling without object or meaning beyond its own
exhibition. Gods, heroes, kings, and dames, enter and retire: they may
have a good reason for appearing--they may have a very poor one;
whatever it is, still we have no right to ask for it;--the question is
impertinent. Let us listen to their harmonious and majestic
language--to the voices of sorrow, joy, compassion, or religious
emotion--to the animated odes of the chorus. Why interrupt so divine a
display of poetical genius by inquiries degrading it to the level of
every-day events, and implying incompleteness in the action till a
catastrophe arrives? The very spirit of beauty breathes through every
part of the composition. We may liken the Greek drama to the music of
the Italian school; in which the wonder is, how so much richness of
invention in detail can be accommodated to a style so simple and
uniform. Each is the development of grace, fancy, pathos, and taste,
in the respective media of representation and sound.

However true then it may be, that one or two of the most celebrated
dramas answer to the requisitions of Aristotle's doctrine, still for
the most part, Greek Tragedy has its own distinct and peculiar praise,
which must not be lessened by a criticism conducted on principles,
whether correct or not, still leading to excellence of another
character. This being, as we hope, shown, we shall be still bolder,
and proceed to question even the sufficiency of the rules of Aristotle
for the production of dramas of the highest order. These rules, it
would appear, require a plot not merely natural and unaffected, as a
vehicle of more poetical matter, but one laboured