It is not necessary to probe further the original legend. Enough has been shown to prove that Eschylus and Sophocles wove into their Orestean. story portions of it, and therefore thought it suitable for their tragedies. Euripides, on the contrary, seems to have quite neglected it. He makes, indeed, Pylades a Delphian, but by banishing him from his country, after the work of retribution is complete, he severs the links of the symbolic story.

Is there any improbability in supposing Euripides, a man of the new era, to have viewed the grim though picturesque stories of the old and waning times as inconsistent with the bright, free, and intelligent Athens in which he dwelt? The pupil of Anaxagoras and Prodicus might well regard a people as little beyond the verge of barbarism for whom the priest was the philosopher, whose heroes yet strove with. wild beasts, who trembled at the phenomena of nature, and among whom ignorance generally prevailed. And among such a people it was that the legends were created and cherished. Imagination was strong, while reason was weak; but did it therefore follow that men capable of reason should always remain children? Perhaps some insight into the feelings of Euripides on theological questions may be gleaned from the story of Socrates, who, while scrupulously worshipping the gods of the state, made no secret that he regarded them as little more than masks-nay, often as unworthy disguises of the taken, greatly abridged, from K. O. Müller's "Essay on the 'Eumenides' of Eschylus," p. 131, English translation.

divine nature.

For the opinions of the philosopher,

There

the reader is referred to the volume of this series in which the writings of Xenophon are treated of. is, however, a remarkable passage in Plato's dialogue entitled 'Phædo,' in which Socrates enumerates as one among the boons death will confer on him, the privilege he will have, when he has shaken off this mortal coil, of knowing better the great gods, and of seeing them with a clearness of vision unattainable by mortals on earth. Euripides, on his side, may have held it to be part of a poet's high position to hint, if not to expound formally to his hearers, that the deities whom the tragedians represented as severe, revengeful, and relentless beings, were merciful as well as just, —that the humanity of Prometheus was at least as divine as the tyranny of Jupiter, or the feuds and caprices of Apollo and Artemis. It was, perchance, among the offences given by Euripides to the comic poets, that his spiritual and intangible god could not, like Neptune, Iris, Hercules, or Bacchus, be parodied by them on the stage. The idols of the temple were by the vulgar esteemed true portraits of the beings whom they affected to revere, but at whom they were always ready to laugh. Neptune and Hercules, in the comedy of the "Birds" of Aristophanes, might be bribed by savoury meats, or hide themselves under an umbrella; but the "great gods" whom the pious Socrates yearned to behold were beyond the reach, and perhaps the comprehension, of the satirist.

We can afford only to hint that the poet's religious opinions, so far as they can be gathered from his

writings, may easily have been misconstrued by men of the time, who appear to have had other motives also for disliking him. The singularity of his habits may have been one reason for their distaste of his opinions. If, as is possible, he belonged to none of the political factions of his time-neither a Cleonite, nor a partisan of Nicias, nor a hanger-on of the gracious-mannered and giddy Alcibiades-here may have been a rock of offence. "Depend upon it, my Phidippides, no man of such odd ways as the son of Mnesarchus can be sound in morals or politics. Folks that shut themselves up have something in them wrong requiring seclusion." Perhaps a brief inquiry into his views on some matters may help to a better understanding of his opinions generally. Was he a bad citizen, as many reputed him to be? Was he a woman-hater to the extent he is accused of being, and beyond the provocation given by his wives? What were his notions about the condition and treatment of slaves? Can we discover from his writings how he thought or voted in politics? Was he an idle dreamer? Was he a home-bred Diagoras of Melos, only less respectable, because less courageous, than that open scoffer? Bad taste he may have had, but it does not follow that he was therefore a bad man.

The charge of being a bad citizen scarcely accords with the political opinions of Euripides, so far as they can be inferred from his plays. A similar accusation has been brought against Plato; and both the one and the other may have proceeded from similar causes. Neither

the poet nor the philosopher took part in public affairs, or held, so far as we know, office under the state. By the speech-loving Athenians, for whom the law courts and the assembly of the people were theatres open all the year round, this was regarded as an odious singularity, if not a grave neglect of civic duty. Socrates, meditative as he was, could strike a good blow in the field when required, and filled an office under the thirty tyrants with credit to himself. Euripides and Plato may fairly have thought the public had advisers enough and to spare-that a good citizen could serve his country with his pen or his lectures as effectively as by becoming one of the clamorous demagogues who grew under every hedge. It will hardly be denied that the patriarch of the Academy strengthened the foundations or enlarged the boundaries of moral science. Is the poet quite disentitled to a similar concession? Has any stage-poet, if we except Shakespeare, supplied moralists and philosophers with more grave or shrewd maxims than he has done? Has any ancient poet taken wider or more liberal views of humanity?

Again, the scenic philosopher was reputed unsound in his theology; and this, no doubt, is an offence in every well-regulated community. Without going beyond the bounds of England, we find that it was no want of will on the part of their opponents that saved Chillingworth, Hobbes, or even John Locke, from something akin to the cup of hemlock tendered to Socrates. Many thousands of honest English householders accounted Milton a heretic, a traitor, and a man of evil life and conversation. To allow our view

of his character to be biassed by a person's opinions is not a discovery of modern times. It was by no means prudent for any one residing in Athens to be wiser than his neighbours in physical science, or to speak or write of the gods otherwise than custom sanctioned. The most orthodox of spectators at the theatre was justly shocked by being told, that the gods he had no scruples about laughing at in the "Frogs' or "Birds" of Aristophanes, were really little more than men's inventions-caricatures rather than portraits of the deity as contemplated by the philosopher. Why could not these dreamers be content with the gods that satisfied Solon the wise, or Aristides the just? And under every class of these offences Euripides seems to have come. He was neither a useful citizen nor a sound believer; he meddled with matters too high for him; the heresies he had imbibed in youth from Anaxagoras clung to him in riper years; and, like his tutor, he deserved a decree of exile at least. He was a proud fellow, and thought himself too clever or too good for mixed society. He read much-he talked little; and was that proper conduct in an Athenian ? In an evil hour came the Sophists to Athens, and it was with Sophists alone that Euripides delighted to consort. So reasoned the vulgar, after the wisdom that was in them, and so they will reason unto the end of time. There can, however, be no doubt that Euripides in his heart despised the popular religion. He could not accept traditional belief: his masters in philosophy had trained him to think for himself; and with his strong sympathy for his fellow-men, he strove,