y, in blank
verse and varied choric measures. It is not, as was the case with
_Alkestis_ worked into the body of the poem; not welded, but inserted.
We have thus, while losing the commentary, the advantage of a detached
transcript, with a lyrical rendering of the lyrical parts of the play.
These are given with a constant vigour and closeness, often with a rare
beauty (as in the famous "Ode bewailing Age," and that other on the
labours of Herakles). Precisely the same characteristics that we have
found in the translation of the _Alkestis_ are here again to be found,
and all that I said on the former, considered apart from its setting,
may be applied to the latter. We have the same literalness (again with a
few apparent exceptions), the same insistence on the root-meaning of
words, the same graphic force and vivifying touch, the same general
clearness and charm.

The original part of the book is of far closer texture and more
remarkable order than "the amber which embalms _Alkestis_" the first
adventure of Balaustion; but it has less human emotion, less general
appeal. It is nothing less than a resuscitation of the old controversy
between Aristophanes and Euripides; a resuscitation, not only of the
controversy, but of the combatants. "Local colour" is laid on with an
unsparing hand, though it cannot be said that the atmosphere is really
Greek. There is hardly a line, there is never a page, without an
allusion to some recondite thing: Athenian customs, Greek names, the
plays of Euripides, above all, the plays of Aristophanes. "Every line of
the poem," it has been truly said, "shows Mr. Browning as soaked and
steeped in the comedies as was Bunyan in his Bible." The result is a
vast, shapeless thing, splendidly and grotesquely alive, but alive with
the obscure and tangled life of the jungle.

Browning's attitude towards the controversy, the side he takes as
champion of Euripides, is distinctly shown, not merely in Balaustion's
statement and defence, but in the whole conduct of the piece.
Aristophanes, though on his own defence, is set in a decidedly
unfavourable light; and no one, judging from Browning's work, can doubt
as to his opinion of the relative qualities of the two great poets. It
is possible even to say there is a partiality in the presentment. But it
must be remembered on the other hand that Browning is not concerned
simply with the question of art, but with the whole bearings, artistic
and ethical, of the conte