ed it too high. It is not Homer's trumpet, but something
more. His pompous, swelling, gigantic diction, resembles rather the
beating of drums and the shouts of battle, than the noble harmony of the
trumpets. The elevation and grandeur of his genius would not permit him to
speak the language of other men, so that his Muse seemed rather to walk in
stilts, than in the buskins of his own invention.

Sophocles understood much better the true excellence of the dramatic
style: he therefore copies Homer more closely, and blends in his diction
that honeyed sweetness, from whence he was denominated "the Bee," with a
gravity that gives his tragedy the modest air of a matron, compelled to
appear in public with dignity, as Horace expresses it.

The style of Euripides, though noble, is less removed from the familiar;
and he seems to have affected rather the pathetic and the elegant, than
the nervous and the lofty.

As Corneille, says father Brumoi in another place, after having opened to
himself a path entirely new and unknown to the ancients, seems like an
eagle towering in the clouds, from the sublimity, force, unbroken
progress, and rapidity of his flight; and, as Racine, in copying the
ancients in a manner entirely his own, imitates the swan, that sometimes
floats upon the air, sometimes rises, then falls again with an elegance of
motion, and a grace peculiar to herself; so AEschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides, have each of them a particular characteristic and method. The
first, as the inventor and father of tragedy, is like a torrent rolling
impetuously over rocks, forests, and precipices; the second resembles a
canal,(189) which flows gently through delicious gardens; and the third a
river, that does not follow its course in a continued line, but loves to
turn and wind his silver wave through flowery meads and rural scenes.

This is the character which father Brumoi gives of the three poets, to
whom the Athenian stage was indebted for its perfection in tragedy.
AEschylus(190) drew it out of its original chaos and confusion, and made it
appear in some degree of lustre; but it still retained the rude unfinished
air of things in their beginning, which are generally defective in point
of art and method. Sophocles and Euripides added infinitely to the dignity
of tragedy. The style of the first, as has been observed, is more noble
and majestic; of the latter, more tender and pathetic; each perfect in
their way. In this diversity of