have laughed, rarely to have even smiled, and to have worn habitually a sorrowful visage. If it were so, Euripides was such a man as the vivacious Gratiano disliked, and even suspected :—

"Why should a man whose blood is warm within
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ?

Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish?”

And Cæsar perhaps might have thought him dangerous, though we have no reason for supposing Euripides "lean and hungry," as Cassius was, but, on the contrary, as will appear, a well-favoured, though a grave and silent man. Perhaps Euripides's horoscope may have resembled that of the good knight of Norwich: "I was born," says Sir Thomas Browne, "in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of company."

The Spectator' remarks that "a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author." There are things said at the Mermaid, his butt of sack, his "Tribe of Ben'), describes himself in these lines :

"I, that spend half my nights and all my days
Here in a cell to get a dark pale face,

To come forth worth the ivy and the bays," &c.

Did we know as little of the English as we do of the Greek poet, here would be ground enough for a legend of a "grotto."

means for "gratifying this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader;" for, thanks to some scholiast or painstaking collector of the curiosities of literature, there exists a brief life of Euripides containing some account of his personal appearance. He is said to have worn a bushy beard, and to have had freckles on his face. This, indeed, is not much; yet it is somewhat for us to learn-a scrap redeemed from the wallet that Time bears on his back. On the same authority we may fairly assume, that when a beardless youth, and perhaps unfreckled, he was noted for fair visage, and that he was "a gentleman born." He was a torch-bearer at the festival of Apollo of Zoster, a village on the coast of Attica.* Now none but handsome and well-born youth were chosen for that office. It is to be hoped that many of our readers are acquainted with Charles Lamb's righteous indignation at the conduct of the "wretched Malone,” the Shakespearian editor and commentator, in covering with white paint the portrait-bust of Shakespeare at Stratfordupon-Avon, "which, in rude but lively fashion, depicted him to the very colour of the cheek, the eye, the eyebrow, hair, the very dress he used to wear-the only

* The festival was held at Delphi, and probably, therefore, Euripides was conveyed thither in the galley (paralus) which annually carried offerings to Apollo's shrine. The young men, clad in Theraic garments, danced round the altar. May not this visit to Delphi have been the germ of the poet's beautiful drama, "Ion"? In any case the report of it shows that no ignobility of birth was attached to the name of Euripides by those who circulated it; and among them was Theophrastus, who indeed wrote long afterwards, but yet weighed his facts.

authentic testimony we have, however imperfect, of these curious parts and parcels of him." If we balance in each case probable facts against equally probable traditions, we may conclude Euripides to be known to us almost as well as Shakespeare, owing to this good Dryasdust, the Greek biographer, who disdains not to chronicle even "freckles."

But it is impossible to believe Euripides to have been a mere recluse. His vocation as a writer for the stage must have brought him into contact with many persons connected with the theatre-with the archon who assigned him a chorus, with the actors, singers, and musicians who performed in his plays, and with the judges who awarded the prizes. Yet if we ask what company he kept, we pause for a reply, and do not get one. We know that he was a friend of Socrates, who never missed attending on the "first night" of a play by Euripides. We know also that every man's house and many men's tables were open to the Silenus-like son of Sophroniscus. We can tell the names of the guests at Plato's and at Xenophon's banquets. Socrates of course is at both, and that of Plato is held at the house of Agathon, Euripides's intimate friend. Some kind of acquaintance, perhaps not exactly friendship, existed between Alcibiades and Euripides, who once celebrated in verse a chariotvictory of that brilliant but dangerous citizen's at the Olympic games. Neither at Plato's nor Xenophon's feast, however, is Euripides present. Nor is it likely that travelling into foreign parts was among the causes for his absence on such festive occasions, since, until in

his later years he quitted Athens, there is no trace of his leaving Attica, except the single fact of an inscription in the island of Icarus ascribed to him. This, however, is no evidence at all of his being from home, since a waxen tablet or a snip of papyrus could have conveyed the inscription, while Euripides remained in his grotto or his library, wrapt in contemplation on his next new play, or striving to solve hard sayings of Prodicus or Protagoras.

Once, indeed, we find him at home. It was in his house that Protagoras is said to have read one of the works by which that philosopher incurred a charge of atheism; and this worshipful society, once bruited abroad, was not likely to be overlooked by the pious writers of comedy. Often, indeed, does Athens, at the period of the Peloponnesian war, present an image of Paris in the last century. There the Church was despised, and yet stanchly supported by men of notoriously evil life; in Athens, divinities, whom the people worshipped superstitiously, if not devoutly, when the theatre was closed, were butts for the people's mirth and laughter when it was open. We have a record of only the two banquets of this time already mentioned. Could we have a report of a "petit souper d'Alcibiades," it might very likely remind us of those symposiums where the head of the Church, Leo the Tenth, encouraged his parasites and buffoons to debate on the greatest mysteries of religion; or the still better known conversations that took place at the supper-table of Baron Holbach. Had we any such report of the petits soupers at Athens, possibly

some resemblance might be found between Protagoras and D'Alembert, or between the brilliant, versatile, and unprincipled Philip of Orleans and Alcibiades. With Alcibiades there was certainly some party or friendly relation with Euripides; but it is vain to speculate on its nature. Whatever it was, it would do the tragic poet no good with Aristophanes; and if the story be true that Alcibiades and his associates marred the first and hindered the second representation of "The Clouds," the baffled and irritated satirist may have suspected Euripides of having a hand in his failure, and for that, and perhaps other weightier reasons, have put him down in his black book,

Certain it is that Aristophanes regarded Euripides with a feeling seemingly compounded of fear and contempt of contempt for him as a scenic artist, and fear of him as a corrupter of youth. Yet it is diffi cult to detect the cause for such hostility; political motives can hardly have been at the root of it. Did Aristophanes detest the war with Peloponnesus, and yearn for the return of peace? so did Euripides. Did he regard the middle class of citizens as the pith and marrow of the commonwealth? Euripides thought so too. The husbandman who tilled his little plot of ground they both set above the shopkeeper, who applauded the demagogue of the hour, and spent, or more properly idled away, half his time on the stone benches of the Pnyx. Did the comic writer love Athens in his heart of hearts, though he often told her from the stage that she was a dolt and a dupe? the tragic writer loved her no less, and paid her compli