breaks and interjections, that the rhythm
and verse are frequently, and for a long period, forgotten. Euripides
alone, who had great rhetorical powers, sometimes indulges in the
lengthened disquisitions, the _arguments in verse_, which exhibit so
admirable a view of all that can be urged on a particular subject, and
which have been so frequently imitated by Corneille and Racine. But even
he, when he comes to the impassioned or pathetic scenes, as in the
_Medea_, the _Iphigenia in Aulis_, and _Hecuba_, is as brief and
energetic in his expression as Shakspeare himself. Simplicity of
language, energy of thought, and force of passion, are the grand
characteristics of the Greek drama, as they were of the Greek oratory,
and their combination constituted the excellence of both. The fire of
the poet, the reach of imagination, was reserved for the chorus, which
frequently exhibited the most sublime specimens of lyric poetry,
rivalling the loftiest strains of the Pindaric muse. Thus the audience,
in a short piece, in which the plot was rapidly urged forward, and the
interest was never allowed for a moment to flag, were presented
alternately with the force of Demosthenes' declamation, the pathos of
Sophocles' expressions, and the fire of Pindar's poetry. It was as if
the finest scenes of Shakspeare's tragedies were thrown together with no
other interjections but the eloquence of Burke in the dialogue, and
lyric poetry on a level with Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," Gray's
"Bard," or Campbell's "Last Man," in the chorus. Is it surprising that
tragedies, exhibiting such a combination, worked out by the most perfect
masters of the human heart, should have entranced every subsequent age?

Though one scene only was presented in each tragedy on the Greek stage,
so that unity of place was effectually observed, yet unity of _time_ was
by no means so strictly attended to; so that the poet was far from being
so fettered in this respect as is commonly imagined. Every scholar knows
that a very considerable time, sometimes some hours, or half a day, were
supposed to be consumed in the few minutes that the strophe and
antistrophe of the chorus were in course of being chanted. For instance,
in the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, during the time that one of the chorus
is reciting a few verses, the heroic sister has found out the body of
her beloved brother, and, in violation of the command of Creon, bestowed
on it the rites of sepulture. In the _Hecuba_ o