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_ We must never forget, that it is not _impar_ merely, but also _dispar_. And such is its value in this light, that I protest five hundred kings' ransoms, nay, any sum conceivable as a common contribution from all nations would not be too much for the infinite treasure of the Greek tragic drama alone. Is it superior to our own? No, nor (so far as capable of collation) not by many degrees approaching to it. And were the case, therefore, one merely of degrees, there would be no room for the pleasure I express. But it shows us the ultimatum of the human mind mutilated and castrated of its infinities, and (what is worse) of its moral infinities.
You must imagine not only everything which there is dreadful in fact, but everything which there is mysterious to the imagination in the pariah condition, before you can approach the Heracleidae. Yet, even with this pariah, how poorly do most men conceive it as nothing more than a civil, a police, an economic affair!
Valckenaer, an admirable Greek scholar, was not a man of fine understanding; nor, to say the truth, was Porson. Indeed, it is remarkable how mean, vulgar, and uncapacious has been the range of intellect in many first-rate Grecians; though, on the other hand, the reader would deeply deceive himself if he should imagine that Greek is an attainment other than difficult, laborious, and requiring exemplary talents. Greek taken singly is, to use an indispensable Latin word, _instar_, the knowledge of all other languages. But men of the highest talents have often beggarly understandings. Hence, in the case of Valckenaer, we must derive the contradictions in his diatribe. He practises this intolerable artifice; he calls himself [Greek: philenripideios]; bespeaks an unfair confidence from the reader; he takes credit for being once disposed to favour and indulge Euripides. In this way he accredits to the careless reader all the false charges or baseless concessions which he makes on any question between Euripides and his rivals. Such men as Valckenaer it is who are biased and inflected beforehand, without perceiving it, by all the commonplaces of criticism. These, it is true, do not arise out of mere shadows. Usually they have a foundation in some fact or modification. What they fail in is, in the just interpretation of these truths, and in the reading of their higher relations. 'The Correggiosity of Correggio' was precisely meant for Valckenaer. The Sophocleity of Sophocles he is keen to recognise, and the superiority of Sophocles as an artist is undeniable; nor is it an advantage difficult to detect. On the other hand, to be more Homeric than Homer is no praise for a tragic poet. It is far more just, pertinent praise, it is a ground of far more interesting praise, that Euripides is granted by his undervalues to be the most _tragic_ ([Greek: tragichotatos]) of tragic poets. After that he can afford to let Sophocles be '[Greek: Homerichotos], who, after all, is not '[Greek: Homerichotutos], so long as AEschylus survives. But even so far we are valuing Euripides as a poet. In another character, as a philosopher, as a large capacious thinker, as a master of pensive and sorrow-tainted wisdom, as a large reviewer of human life, he is as much beyond all rivalship from his scenic brethren as he is below one of them as a scenic artist.
Is the Nile ancient? So is Homer. Is the Nile remote and hiding its head in fable? So is Homer. Is the Nile the diffusive benefactor of the world? So is Homer.[8]
[Footnote 8: [This idea is expanded and followed out in detail in the opening of 'Homer and the Homeridae;' but this is evidently the note from which that grew, and is here given alike on account of its compactness and felicity.--ED.].]
_The AEneid._--It is not any supposed excellence that has embalmed this poem; but the enshrining of the differential Roman principle (the grand aspiring character of resolution), all referred to the central principle of the aggrandizement of Rome.
The sublime of wrath is nowhere exhibited so well as in Juvenal. Yet in Juvenal pretty glimpses of rural rest--
'... infans cum collusore catello.'[8]
[Footnote 8: Satire ix., lines 60, 61.]
That is pretty! There is another which comes to my mind and suggests his rising up and laying aside, etc., and shows it to be an _occasional_ act, and, _ergo_, his garden is but a relaxation, amusement.
Glances which the haughty eyes of Rome threw sometimes gently and relentingly aside on man or woman, children or the flowers.
Herodotus is as sceptical as Plutarch is credulous. How often is _now_ and _at this time_ applied to the fictitious present of the author, whilst a man arguing generally beforehand would say that surely a man could always distinguish between _now_ and _then_. _
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