Milton in his sublime tragedies. Sophocles and Euripides
were contemporary with Pericles and Phidias; the same age witnessed the
_Clouds_ of Aristophanes, the death of Socrates, and the history of
Thucydides. The warlike and savage genius of the Romans made them prefer
the excitement of the amphitheatre to the entrancement of the theatre;
but the comedies of Plautus and Terence remain durable monuments, that
the genius of dramatic poetry among them advanced abreast of the epic or
lyric muse. The names of Alfieri, Metastasio, and Goldoni, demonstrate
that modern Italy has successfully cultivated the dramatic as well as
the epic muse; the tragedies of the first are worthy the country of
Tasso, the operas of the second rival the charms of Petrarch. In the
Spanish peninsula, Lope de Vega and Calderon have astonished the world
by the variety and prodigality of their conceptions;[J] and fully
vindicated the title of the Castilians to place their dramatic writers
on a level with their great epic poets.

Need it be told that France stands pre-eminent in dramatic excellence;
that Corneille, Racine, and Moliere, were contemporaries of Bossuet,
Massillon, and Boileau; that the tragedies of Voltaire were the highest
effort of his vast and varied genius? Germany, albeit the last-born in
the literary family of Europe, has already vindicated its title to a
foremost place in this noble branch of composition; for Lessing has few
modern rivals in the perception of dramatic excellence, and Schiller
none in the magnificent historic mirror which he has placed on the stage
of the Fatherland. How, then, has it happened, that when, in all other
nations which have risen to greatness in the world, the genius of
dramatic poetry has kept pace with its eminence in all other respects,
in England alone the case is the reverse; and the nation which has
surpassed all others in the highest branches of poetry, eloquence, and
history, is still obliged to recur to the patriarch of a comparatively
barbarous age for a parallel to the great dramatic writers of other
states?

The worshippers of Shakspeare tell us, that this has been owing to his
very greatness; that he was so much above other men as to defy
competition and extinguish rivalry; and that genius, in despair of ever
equalling his vast and varied conceptions, has turned aside into other
channels where the avenue to the highest distinction was not blocked up
by the giant of former days. But a littl