plains the reasons for concealment hitherto, and the cause for disclosure now: bids Creusa take her son to the land of Cecrops, and there seat him on the throne of his grandsire Erectheus. She concludes with a prediction of the fortunes of the Ionian race, and of the Dorians, who are to descend from Dorus, a son she is to bear to Xuthus. And thus Apollo is absolved from wrong, and Creusa rejoices in the prospect of becoming the mother of two Greek nations, and these the rival leaders of the Hellenic world.

Should this exquisitely beautiful play be ranked among tragedies or comedies? Neither title exactly suits it. Rather is it a melodrama. And but for a few ceremonies inherent in or necessary to the Greek stage, might it not be almost accounted the work of a modern poet? The complexity of the fable, the rapid transitions in the action, the picturesque beauty of the scenes, and the domestic nature of the emotions it excites, have a far less classic than romantic stamp. For the long speech of the attendant who describes the manner in which the plot against the life of the hero is baffled, substitute a representation on the stage of the banquetcancel the prologue spoken by Mercury, and the winding-up scene in which Minerva appears—and then, even without omitting the Chorus, there will remain a mixed drama which neither Calderon nor Shakespeare might have disdained to own. Perhaps the modern air that we attribute to it may have been among the reasons for the comparative neglect of the "Ion" by the ancient critics—nay even, it might seem, by those who witnessed the performance of it.

But neither the date of

its production nor the trilogy of which it formed a part is known. It may be, as regards "its general composition, more pleasing than powerful." We agree, however, entirely with Mr Paley, when he says: "none of his plays so clearly show the fine mind of Euripides, or impress us with a more favourable idea of his virtuous and human character."

HIPPOLYTUS.

The play which has just been surveyed is of a religious character, and the "Hippolytus" is coupled with it, because, although dealing with human passion far more than the "Ion," the principal character in it is also that of a devotee. However philosophical or sceptical Euripides may have been in his theological opinions, no one of the Greek dramatic poets surpassed him in the delineation of piety and reverence for the gods; and he seems to have delighted especially in portraying the effect of such feelings upon pure and youthful minds. If, indeed, fear rather than love of the gods be essential to devotion, then Æschylus must be accounted a far more pious writer than Euripides. The Calvinists of criticism will naturally prefer gloom and terror, inexorable Fates and all-powerful Furies, to the humane, benign, and rational sentiments which consist with the attributes of mercy and justice. We neither expect nor desire to reconcile these opposite factions further than may be necessary for a statement of the claims of the younger poet to a fair hearing.

"Ion" and "Hippolytus" are each of them examples of youthful virtue: the latter has, or at least displays, the more enthusiastic temperament, which, however, is drawn out from him by the greater severity of his lot. Yet we can easily conceive the votary of the chaste Diana passing through life quite as contentedly in her service as Ion would have passed his days as a minister of Apollo. It was the hard destiny of the son of Theseus to have incurred the heavy displeasure of one goddess through his earnest devotion to another. The life-battle he has to fight is indeed really a contest between two rival divinities; and were second titles possible in Greek plays, this affecting and noble tragedy might be entitled "Hippolytus, or the Contest between Venus and Diana."

As the plot of the "Hippolytus" is, through the "Phédre" of Racine, probably better known to English readers than the more complicated fable of the "Ion," it may be sufficient to state it briefly, and to direct attention rather to the characters than the story. The hero is the son of Theseus, king of Athens, by the Amazonian Hippolyta, whom Shakespeare has sketched in his "Midsummer Night's Dream." His boyish years have been passed at Troezen with his grandfather, the pure-minded Pittheus. While under his roof, Hippolytus devotes himself to the worship of Diana: like her he delights in the chase; like her also he shuns the snares of love or the chains of wedlock. Excelling in all manly exercises, and adorned with every virtue, he unhappily not merely neglects Venus, but irritates her by open expressions of contempt for

herself and her rites: and he owes to this pride or exclusive zeal the hideous ruin which engulfs him. The offended goddess sets forth in the prologue her determination to destroy Diana's favourite, and gives her reasons for it. She says:—

"Those that reverence my powers I favour,
But I confound all who think scorn of me.
For even divinity is fashioned thus-
It joys in mortal honours."

"He may consort with the huntress, he may follow his swift dogs, he may shun fellowship with men, as much as he likes of his tastes I reck not: what I cannot overlook is his personally offensive conduct to myself, a goddess not inglorious,' and accounted by mortals generally as not the least potent of Olympians." The means of revenge are not far to seek. Phædra, his young and beauteous stepmother, is pining for love of him, and through her unhappy passion he shall be struck: "with her I have no quarrel," says the goddess—

"Yet let her perish :

I have not for her life that tenderness

As not to wreak just vengeance on my foes."

The prologue ended, Venus disappears, and Hippolytus and his retinue of huntsmen enter, singing a hymn to Diana. When it is finished, he thus addresses the goddess-an invocation which has been thus beautifully paraphrased :—

"Thou maid of maids, Diana, the goddess whom he fears, Unto thee Hippolytus this flowery chaplet bears;

From meadows where no shepherd his flock a-field e'er

drove,

From where no woodman's hatchet hath woke the echoing

grove,

Where o'er the unshorn meadow the wild bee passes free,
Where by her river-haunts dwells virgin Modesty ;
Where he who knoweth nothing of the wisdom of the
schools

Beareth in a virgin heart the fairest of all rules;

To him 'tis given all freely to cull those self-sown flowers, But evil men must touch not pure Nature's sacred bowers.

This to his virgin mistress a virgin hand doth bear—
A wreath of unsoiled flowers to deck her golden hair.
For such alone of mortals can unto her draw nigh,
And with that guardian Goddess hold solemn converse
high.

He ever hears the voice of his own virgin Queen,

He hears what others hear not, and sees her though

Το

unseen;

He holds his virgin purpose in freedom unbeguiled, age and death advancing in innocence a child." * -(Isaac Williams.)

Hippolytus is warned by his henchman that he is incurring danger by his total neglect of Venus; but he replies only by a rather contumelious remark that “I salute her from afar;" "some with this god and some with that have dealings;" and then the master and his men depart to a banquet. We pass onward to Phædra's entrance, which is announced by her ancient nurse, much such an accommodating personage as the

* With this exception, all the translated passages in this chapter are taken from Mr Maurice Purcell Fitzgerald's admirable version of "The Crowned Hippolytus."