, in which he speaks thus: "Inconstancy is
not my character. I have retained every friend except Sophocles; though
I no longer see him, I do not hate him. Injustice has alienated me from
him; justice reproaches me for it. I hope time will cement our reunion.
What mortal ill is not caused at times by those wicked spirits who are
never so happy as when they sow dissension among those who by nature and
reason are meant to promote the felicity of each other."

A weakness of voice under which Sophocles laboured often prevented his
appearing in his own tragedies; but this did not at all injure his fame,
for he continued to write into extreme old age with uniformly increasing
reputation. It is recorded that he composed one hundred and twenty
tragedies, of which not more than seven are extant--namely, AJAX,
ELECTRA, OEDIPUS THE TYRANT, ANTIGONE, THE TRACHINIAE, PHILOCTETES, and
OEDIPUS AT COLONOS. The last of those tragedies has been ever marked
with particular regard on account of a most interesting circumstance
that attended its production, and made it the apex of that great man's
fame and fortune.

Like old Lear, Sophocles was cursed with ungrateful children.
Shakspeare's imagination went no further than TWO ungrateful daughters:
Sophocles had in reality _four sons_, all as ungrateful as those
monsters of Shakspeare's brain. The extreme age and bodily infirmities
of their venerable parent, having for sometime inflamed their anxiety to
become masters of his possessions, they grew at last impatient and,
weary of his living so long, formed a conspiracy against him, and
accused him before the Areopagus, of being insane, a driveller incapable
of governing his family, or managing his concerns--in short, a fool,
a madman. He had fortunately, at that time, just finished his OEDIPUS AT
COLONOS. When he heard the charge made against him by his ingrate sons,
he offered no defence but this tragedy, which he read to the judges, and
then with the boldness of conscious superiority demanded of them whether
the author of that piece could be taxed with insanity. Heart-struck with
the exquisite beauties and sublime sentiments of the piece, and
astonished at the vigorous mind, the exalted truth, the profound moral
wisdom, the accurate and solid judgment, and the almost divinely
persuasive language that pervaded every act of it, they heaped honours
along with their acquittal upon his head, dismissed him with a shout of
praise, and sent his sons