sing the arts and sciences. The most lasting monument of his liberality in this respect was the great library which he founded, and which yielded only to that of Alexandrea in extent and value. (Strab., 624.) It was from their being first used for writing in this library, that parchment skins were called "Pergamena Charte." (Varr., ap. Plin., 13, 11.) Plutarch informs us, that this vast collection, which consisted of no less than 200,000 volumes, was given by Antony to Cleopatra. (Vit. Anton., c. 25) Eumenes reigned 49 years, leaving an infant son, under the care of his brother Attalus, who administered affairs as regent for 21 years, with great success and renown. (Vid. Pergamus.) EUMENIA, a city of Phrygia, north of Pelte, which probably derived its name from Eumenes, king of Pergamus. (Steph. Byz., s. v. Eiuéveia.)

EUMENIDES (the kind goddesses), a name given to the Erinnyes or Furies, goddesses whose business it was to avenge murder upon earth. They were also called Semna (Zeuvaí) or “venerated goddesses." The name Eumenides is commonly thought to have been used through a superstitious motive. (Vid. Furiæ.)

EUMENIDIA, a festival in honour of the Eumenides or Furies. It was observed once a year with sacrifices and libations. At Athens none but freeborn citizens were allowed to participate in the solemnity, and of these, none but such as were of known virtue and integrity. (Vid. Eumenides.)

EUMOLPIDA, a sacerdotal family or house, to which the priests of Ceres at Eleusis belonged. They claimed descent from the mythic Eumolpus. The Eumolpide had charge of the mysteries by hereditary right, and to this same sacerdotal line was expressly intrusted the celebration of the Thesmophoria. (Vid. Eumolpus, and consult Creuzer, Symbolik, vol. 4, p. 355, 442, 482, seqq.)

ly intended to deduce the Eumolpide from Thrace, while the name Tegyrius would seem to point to Bootia, where there was a town named Tegyra. (Keight| ley's Mythology, p. 383.)

EUNAPIUS, a native of Sardis in Lydia. He flourished in the fourth century, and was a kinsman of the sophist Chrysanthus, at whose request he wrote the lives of the philosophers of his time. The work has been characterized by Brucker as a mass of extravagant tales, discovering a feeble understanding, and an imagination prone to superstition. Besides being a sophist, he was an historian, and practised physic. He wrote a history of the Cæsars from Claudius II. to Arcadius and Honorius, of which only a fragment remains. The lives of the philosophers was published with a Latin version by Junius, Anto., 1568, and by Commelinus in 1596.

EUPATOR, a surname given to many of the Asiatic princes, particularly to Mithradates VII. of Pontus, and Antiochus V. of Syria.

EUPATORIA, I. a town of Pontus, at the confluence of the Lycus and Iris. It was begun by Mithradates under the name Eupatoria, and received from Pompey, who finished it, the title of Magnopolis. (Strab., 556.) Its site appears to correspond with that of the modern Tehenikeh. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 6, pt. 2, p. 471.)-II. A town in the northwestern part of the Tauric Chersonese, on the Sinus Carcinites. It was founded by one of the generals of Mithradates, and is supposed to answer to the modern Koslof or Gosleve. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 4, p. 294.)

EUPHÃES, succeeded Androcles on the throne of Messenia, and in his reign the first Messenian war began. He died B.C. 730. (Pausan, 4, 5, 6.)

EUPHORBUS, a Trojan, son of Panthous, renowned for his valour; he wounded Patroclus, and was killed by Menelaus. (I., 17, 60.) Pausanias relates (2, 17) that in the temple of Juno, near Mycena, a votive shield was shown, said to be that of Euphorbus, suspended there by Menelaus. Pythagoras, who maintained the transmigration of souls, affirmed, that, in the time of the Trojan war, his soul had animated the body of Euphorbus; and as a proof of the truth of his assertion, he is said to have gone into the temple where the shield was hanging, and to have recognised and taken it down. Maximus Tyrius (28, p. 288, cd. Dav.) speaks of an inscription on the shield, which proved it to have been offered by Menelaus to Minerva. Ovid (Met., 15, 160) lays the scene of the fable in the temple of Juno at Argos; while Tertullian (de Anima, p. 215) makes the shield to have been an offering at Delphi. Diogenes Laertius, finally, gives the temple of Apollo among the Branchidæ, near the city of Miletus, as the place where the wonder was worked (8, 4, seq.)

EUMOLPUS, son of Neptune and Chione, daughter of Boreas and Orithyia. Chione, to conceal her weakness, threw the babe into the sea, to the protection of his father. Neptune took him to Ethiopia, and gave him to his daughter Benthesicyme to rear. When Eumolpus was grown up, the husband of Benthesicyme gave him one of his two daughters in marriage; but Eumolpus, attempting to offer violence to the sister of his wife, was forced to fly. He came with his son Ismarus to Tegyrius, a king of Thrace, who gave his daughter in marriage to Ismarus. But Eumolpus, being detected plotting against Tegyrius, was once more forced to fly, and came to Eleusis. Ismarus dying, Tegyrius became reconciled to Eumolpus, who returned to Thrace, and succeeded him in his kingdom. War breaking out between the Athenians and Eleusinians, the latter invoked the aid of their former guest. A contest ensued, and, according to the account given by Apollodorus (3, 15, 4), Eumolpus fell in battle against Erechtheus. Pausanias, however, EUPHORION, I. a tragic poet of Athens, son of Esstates (1, 38, 3), that there fell in this conflict, on the chylus. He conquered four times with posthumous one side Erechtheus, and on the other Immaradus, son tragedies of his father's composition, and also wrote of Eumolpus; and that the war was ended on the fol- several dramas himself. One of his victories is comlowing terms the Eleusinians were to acknowledge memorated in the argument to the Medea of Euripithe power of Athens, but were to retain the rites of des, where we are told that Euphorion was first, SophCeres and Proserpina, and over these Eumolpus and ocles second, and Euripides third with the Medea. the daughters of Celeus, king of Eleusis, were to pre- Olymp. 87, 2, B.C. 431. (Suid.-Theatre of the side. Other authorities, however, make the agree- Greeks, p. 95, 4th ed.)-II. An epic and epigramment to have been as follows: the descendants of Eu-matic poet, born at Chalcis in Euboea, B.C. 276, and molpus were to enjoy the priestly office at Eleusis, who became librarian to Antiochus the Great. He while the descendants of Erechtheus were to occupy the wrote various poems, entitled "Hesiod," "AlexanAttic throne. (Schol. mscr. Aristid. ad Panathen., p. der," "Arius," "Apollodorus," &c. His "Mopsopia" 118.-Creuzer, Symbolik, vol. 4, p. 344, not.)-Here or "Miscellanies" (Moponía Takтa) was a collecwe find a physical myth in unison with an historical tion, in five books, of fables and histories relative to legend. It was a tradition in Attica, that the sacred Attica, a very learned work, but rivalling in obscurity family of the Eumolpida belonged to the mythic Thra- the Cassandra of Lycophron. The fifth book bore the cians, whom we find sometimes on Helicon, some- title of "Chiliad” (Xi^iúç), either because it consisted imes in Thrace. The present legend, by making of a thousand verses, or because it contained the anEumolpus a son of the sea-god, and grandson of the cient oracles that referred to a period of a thousand north wind. and giving him a son named Ismarus, plain- | years. Perhaps, however, each of the five books con

ained a thousand verses, for the passage of Suidas re-
specting this writer is somewhat obscure and defective,
and Eudoxia, in the Garden of Violets," speaks of
a fifth Chiliad, entitled Περὶ Χρησμῶν, "Of Oracles."
Quintilian recommends the reading of this poet, and
Virgil is said to have esteemed his productions very
highly. A passage in the tenth Eclogue (v. 50, seqq.),
and a remark made by Servius (ad Eclog., 6, 72),
have led Heyne to suppose, that C. Cornelius Gallus,
the friend of Virgil, had translated Euphorion into
Latin verse.
This poet was one of the favourite au-
thors of the Emperor Tiberius, one of those whom he
imitated, and whose busts he placed in his library.
The fragments of Euphorion were collected and pub-
lished by Meineke, in his work "De Euphorionis
Chalc. vita et scriptis," Gedani, 1823, 8vo. (Schöll,
Hist. Lit. Gr., vol. 3, p. 122.)

six miles. The southernmost is the deepest, and freest
in its current. Bars of sand, casued by the river, and
which change in their form and situation, render the
approach dangerous to the mariner. The tide, which
rises above Bassora, and even beyond Coma, meeting
with violence the downward course of the stream,
raises its waters in the form of frothy billows.-Some
of the ancients describe the Euphrates as losing itself
in the lakes and marshes to the south of Babylon.
(Arrian, 7, 7.-Mela, 3, 8.—Plin., 5, 26.) Others
consider the river formed by the union of the two as
entitled to a continuation of the name of Euphrates.
(Strab., 2, p. 132; 15, p. 1060.) According to some,
the Euphrates originally entered the sea as a sep-
arate river, the course of which the Arabs stopped up
by a mound. (Plin., 6, 27.) This last opinion has
been in some measure revived by Niebuhr, who sup-
poses that the canal of Naar-Sares, proceeding from
the Euphrates on the north of Babylon, is continued
without interruption to the sea. But uncertainty
must always prevail with regard to this and other
points connected with the Euphrates, both from the
inundations of the river, which render this flat and
moveable ground continually liable to change, as well
as from the works of human labour. The whole length
of the Euphrates, including the Shat-al-Arab, is 1147
English miles. Its name is the Greek form of the
original appellation Phrath, which signifies fruitful or
fertilizing; the prefix cu, being corrupted from the
Oriental article. The Oriental name is sometimes
also written Perath, as in Gen., 2, 14, 15, 18, and
Joshua, 1, 4. By the Arabians the river is called
Forat. The epithet fertilis is applied to it by Lucan,
Sallust, Solinus, and Cicero. The modern name of
the Arsanias is Morad-Siai, or the waters of desire.
(Malte-Brun, vol. 2, p. 100, seqq., Am. ed.)

EUPHRANOR, an eminent statuary and painter of Corinth. He flourished about the 104th Olympiad, B.C. 362. Pliny gives an enumeration of his works. (Plin., 35, 8, 19.--Compare Pausan., 1, 3, 2, and the remarks of Fuseli, in his Lecture on Ancient Painting, p. 67.) EUPHRATES, I. a native of Oreus in Euboea, and a disciple of Plato. He quitted Athens for the court of Perdiccas, king of Macedonia, with whom he became a favourite. After the death of this monarch he returned to his country, and headed a party against Philip, the successor of Perdiccas and father of Alexander. Being shut up, however, within the walls of Oreus, he put an end to his own life. According to some, he was killed by order of Parinenio. -II. A Stoic philosopher, and native of Alexandrea, who flourished in the second century. He was a friend of the philosopher Apollonius Tyaneus, who introduced him to Vespasian. Pliny the younger (Epist., 1, 10) gives a very high character of him. When he found his strength worn out by disease and old age, he volunta- EUPHROSYNE (Joy), one of the Graces, sister to rily put a period to his life by drinking hemlock, hav- Aglaia and Thalia. (Pausan, 9, 35.) ing first, for some unknown reason, obtained permis- EUPOLIS, a writer of the old comedy, was born at sion from the Emperor Hadrian. (Enfield, Hist. Phi- Athens about the year 446 B.C. (Clinton, Fast. los., vol. 2, p. 119, seqq.)-III. One of the most con- Hell., vol. 1, p. 63.) He was therefore a contemposiderable and best known rivers of Asia. The Eu-rary of Aristophanes, who, in all probability, was born phrates rises near Arze, the modern Erze-Roum. Its a year or two after. Eupolis is supposed to have exsource is among mountains, which Strabo makes to be hibited for the first time in B.C. 429. In B.C. 425 he a part of the most northern branch of Taurus. At was third with his Novunviai, when Cratinus was secfirst it is a very inconsiderable stream, and flows to ond, and Aristophanes first. In B.C. 421 he brought the west, until, encountering the mountains of Cappa-out his Mapikaç and his Kóλakɛç; one at the Dionysia docia, it turns to the south, and, after flowing a short distance, receives its southern arm, a large river coming from the east, and rising in the southern declivity of the range of Mount Ararat. This southern arm of the Euphrates is the Arsanias, according to Mannert, and is the river D'Anville mentions as the Euphrates which the ten thousand crossed in their retreat (Anab., 4, 5), and of which mention is made by Pliny in reference to the campaigns of Corbulo. The Euphrates, upon this accession of waters, becoming a very considerable stream, descends rapidly, in a bending course, nearly W.S. W. to the vicinity of SamosaThe range of Amanus here preventing its farther progress in this direction, it turns off to the S.E., a course which it next pursues, with some little variation, until it reaches Circesium. To the south of this place it enters the immense plains of Sennar; but, being repelled on the Arabian side by some sandy and calcareous heights, it is forced to run again to the S.E. and approach the Tigris. In proportion as these two rivers now approximate to one another, the intermediate land loses its elevation, and is occupied by meadows and morasses. Several artificial communications, perhaps two or three which are natural, form a prelude to the approaching junction of the rivers, which finally takes place near Coma. The river formed by their junction is called Shat-al-Arab, or the river of Arabia. It has three principal mouths, besides a small outlet; these occupy a space of thirty

ta.

v Anvaiois, the other at those v ore; and in a similar way his Auróλukoç and 'ACTρаTEUrol the following year. (Schol. in Aristoph., Nub., 552, 592.Athen., 5, p. 216.-Schol. in Aristoph., Pac., 803.) The titles of more than twenty of his comedies have been collected by Meursius. A few fragments remain. Eupolis was a bold and severe satirist on the vices of his day and city. Persius (1, 124) terms him “iratum." (Compare Horat., Sat., 1, 4, 1, seqq.) In the Mapıkaç he attacked Hyperbolus. (Aristoph., Nubes, 551.) In the Auróhukos he ridiculed the handsome pancratiast of that name; in the 'Aorpúreurot, which was probably a pasquinade, he lashed the useless and cowardly citizens of Athens, and denounced Melanthus as an epicure. In the Barraí he inveighed against the effeminacy of his countrymen. (Schol. in Aristoph., Pac., 808.) In his Aakedaiμoveç he assailed Cimon, accusing him, among other charges, of an unpatriotic bias towards everything Spartan. (Compare Plutarch, Vit. Cim., c. 16, who says that this play had a great influence on the public feeling.) __Aristophanes seems to have been on bad terms with Eupolis, whom he charges with having pillaged the materials for his Mapikus from the 'Is (Nubes, 551, seqq.), and with making scurrilous jokes on his premature baldness. (Schol. ad Nub., 532.) Eupolis appears to have been a warm admirer of Pericles as a statesman and as a man (Schol. ad Aristoph., Acharn, p. 794, Dindorf), as it was reasonable that such a comedian should be, if it

In

the poet to accept the invitations of Archelaus. Per- py catastrophes; sunce he immediately subjoins 'al haps, too, a prosecution in which he became involved, though he does not arrange the rest well.' Lastly, the on a charge of impiety, grounded upon a line in the scholiast on Euripides contains many short and solid Hippolytus (Aristot., Rhet., 3, 15), might have had critiques on single plays, among which may possibly some share in producing this determination to quit be preserved the judgments of the Alexandrean critics, Athens; nor ought we to omit, that, in all likelihood, of whom Aristarchus, by his soundness and acuteness, his political sentiments may have exposed him to con- deserved that his name should be proverbially used to tinual danger. In Macedonia he is said to have writ- signify a genuine critic. In Euripides we no longer ten a play in honour of Archelaus, and to have in- find the essence of ancient tragedy pure and unmixed; scribed it with his patron's name, who was so much its characteristic features are already partly effaced. pleased with the manners and abilities of his guest as These consist principally in the idea of destiny which to appoint him one of his ministers. He composed in reigns in them, in ideal representation, and the importhis same country also some other dramatic pieces, in tance of the chorus. The idea of destiny had, indeed, one of which (the Baccha) he seems to have been in- come down to him from his predecessors as his inherspired by the wild scenery of the land to which he had itance, and a belief in it is inculcated by him, accordcome. No farther particulars are recorded of Euripi- ing to the custom of the tragedians; but still, in Eudes, except a few apocryphal anecdotes and apoph-ripides, destiny is seldom considered as the invisible thegms. His death is said to have been, like that of spirit of all poetry, the fundamental thought of the Eschylus, in its nature extraordinary. Either from tragic world. It will be found that this idea may be chance or malice, the aged dramatist was exposed, ac- taken in a severe or mild point of view; and that the cording to the common account, to the attack of some gloomy fearfulness of destiny, in the course of a whole ferocious hounds, and by them so dreadfully mangled trilogy, clears up, till it indicates a wise and good provas to expire soon afterward, in his seventy-fifth year. idence. Euripides, on the other hand, drew it from This story, however, is clearly a fabrication, for Aris- the regions of infinity, and, in his writings, inevitable tophanes in the Frogs would certainly have alluded to necessity often degenerates into the caprice of chance. the manner of his death, had there been anything re- Hence he can no longer direct it to its proper aim, markable in it. He died B.C. 406, on the same day on namely, that of elevating, by its contrast, the moral which Dionysius assumed the tyranny. (Clinton, Fast. free-will of man. Very few of his pieces depend on a Hellen., vol. 1, p. 81) The Athenians entreated Ar- constant combat against the dictates of destiny, or an chelaus to send the body to the poet's native city for equally heroic subjection to them. His men, in geninterment. The request was refused, and, with every eral, suffer, because they must, and not because they demonstration of grief and respect, Euripides was are willing. The contrasted subordination of ideal buried at Pella. A cenotaph, however, was erected to loftiness of character and passion, which in Sophocles, his memory at Athens.-"If we consider Euripides as well as in the graphic art of the Greeks, we find obby himself," observes Schlegel (vol. 1, p. 198, seqq.), served in this order, are in him exactly reversed. "without any comparison with his predecessors; if we his plays passion is the most powerful; his secondary select many of his best pieces, and some single pas care is for character; and if these endeavours leave sages of others, we must bestow extraordinary praise him sufficient room, he seeks now and then to bring in upon him. On the other hand, if we view him in con- greatness and dignity, but more frequently amiability. nexion with the history of his art; if in his pieces we The dramatis persona of a tragedy cannot be all alike always regard the whole, and particularly his object, as free from faults, as otherwise hardly any strife could generally displayed in those which have come down to take place among them, and consequently there could us, we cannot forbear blaming him strongly, and on be no complication of plot. But Euripides has, acmany accounts. There are few writers of whom so cording to the doctrine of Aristotle (Poet., 15, 7.— much good and so much i may be said with truth. Ibid., 26, 31), frequently represented his personages as His mind, to whose ingenuity there were no bounds, bad without any necessity; for example, Menelaus in was exercised in every intellectual art; but this pro- the Orestes. Tradition, hallowed by popular belief, fusion of brilliant and amiable qualities was not gov- reported great crimes of many ancient heroes; but erned in him by that elevated seriousness of disposi- Euripides, from his own free choice, falsely imputes to tion, or that vigorous and artist-like moderation, which them traits at once mean and malicious. More espewe revere in Eschylus and Sophocles. He always cially, it is by no means his object to represent the race strives to please alone, careless by what means. of heroes as pre-eminent above the present one by Hence he is so unequal to himself. He sometimes their mighty stature, but he rather takes pains to fill up has passages overpoweringly beautiful, and at other or to arch over the chasm between his contemporaries times sinks into real lowness of style. With all his and that wondrous olden time, and secretly to espy the faults, he possesses astonishing ease, and a sort of fas- gods and heroes of the other side in their undress; cinating charm. We have some cutting sayings of against which sort of observation, as the saying goes, Sophocles concerning Euripides, although the former no man, however great, can be proof. His manner of was so void of all the jealousy of an artist that he representation, as it were, presumes to be intimate mourned over the death of the latter; and, in a piece with them: it does not draw the supernatural and the which he shortly after brought upon the stage, did not fabulous into the circle of humanity, but into the limallow his actors the ornament of a garland. I hold its of an imperfect individual. This is what Sophocles myself justified in applying to Euripides particularly, meant when he said that he himself represented men as those accusations of Plato against the tragic poets, that they should be, Euripides as they were. Not as if his they gave up men too much to the power of the pas- own characters could always be held up as patterns of sions, and made them effeminate by putting immod- irreproachable behaviour: his saying referred to their erate lamentations into the mouths of their heroes, be- ideal loftiness of character and manners. It seems to cause their groundlessness would be too clear if refer- be a design of Euripides always to remind his spectared to his predecessors. The jeering attacks of Aris-tors, See, those beings were men; they had just such tophanes are well known, but have not always been weaknesses, and acted from exactly the same motives properly estimated and understood. Aristotle brings that you do, that the meanest among you does.' forward many important causes for blame; and when he calls Euripides 'the most tragic of poets' (Poet., 13, 10), he by no means ascribes to him the greatest perfection in the tragic art generally; but he means, by this phrase, the effect which is produced by unhap

Hence he paints with great delight the weak sides and moral failings of his personages; nay, more, he even makes them exhibit them in frank self-confessions. They frequently are not only mean, but boast of it as if it must be so.-In his dramas the chorus is generally

My tongue took an oath, but my mind is unsworn.' In the connexion in which this verse is spoken, it may indeed be justified, as far as regards the reason for which Aristophanes ridicules it in so many ways; but still the formula is pernicious on account of the turn which may be given it. Another sentiment of Euripides (Phæniss., 534), 'It is worth while com

an unessential ornament; its songs are often altogether | good only of the social relations of his contemporaries. episodical, without reference to the action; more glit- He strews up and down a multitude of moral maxims, sering than energetic or really inspired. The cho- in which he contradicts himself, that are generally trite rus,' says Aristotle (Poet., 18, 21), must be consid- and often entirely false. With all this ostentation of ered as one of the actors, and as a part of the whole; morality, the intention of his pieces, and the impression t must endeavour to assist the others; not as Eurip- which, on the whole, they produce, is sometimes exides, but as Sophocles, employs it.' The ancient tremely immoral. It is related of him, that he made comic writers enjoyed the privilege of sometimes ma- Bellerophon come on the stage with a contemptible sing the chorus address the audience in their own panegyric on riches, in which he preferred them before name; this was called a Parabasis. Although it by every domestic joy; and said, at last, 'If Venus (who no means belongs to tragedy, yet Euripides, according had the epithet of golden) shone like gold, she would to the testimony of Julius Pollux, often employed it, indeed deserve the love of men.' (Seneca, Epist., and so far forgot himself in it, that, in the piece called 115.) The audience, enraged at this, raised a great The Daughters of Danaus,' he made the chorus, tumult, and were proceeding to stone the orator as consisting of women, use grammatical forms which be- well as the poet. Euripides, on this, rushed forward longed to the masculine gender alone. Thus our poet and exclaimed, Wait patiently till the end; he will took away the internal essence of tragedy, and injured fare accordingly.' Thus also he is said to have exthe beautiful symmetry of its exterior structure. He cused himself against the accusation, that his Ixion generally sacrifices the whole to parts, and in these, spoke too abominably and blasphemously, by replying, again, he rather seeks after extraneous attractions than that, in return, he had not concluded the piece without genuine poetic beauty. In the music of the accompa- making him revolve on the wheel. But this shift of niments he adopted all the innovations of which Timo- poetic justice, to atone for the representation of wicktheus was the author, and selected those measures edness, does not take place in all his dramas. The which are most suitable to the effeminacy of his poe- bad frequently escape; lies and other knavish tricks try. He acted in a similar way as regarded prosody; are openly taken into protection, especially when he the construction of his verses is luxuriant, and ap- falsely attributes to them noble motives. He has also proaches irregularity. This melting and unmanly turn great command of that treacherous sophistry of the paswould indubitably, on a close examination, show itself sions which gives things only one appearance. The in the rhythm of his choruses. He everywhere su- following verse (Hippol., 608) is notorious for its apolperfluously brings in those merely corporeal charms, ogy for perjury; indeed, it seems to express what caswhich Winckelmann calls a flattery of the coarse out- uists call mental reservation: ward sense; everything which is stimulating or striking, or, in a word, which has a lively effect, without any real intrinsic value for the mind and the feelings. He strives after effect in a degree which cannot be conceded even to a dramatic poet. Thus, for example, he seldom lets any opportunity escape of having his personages seized with sudden and groundless terror; his old men always complain of the infirmities of old age, and are particularly given to mount, with totter-mitting injustice for the sake of empire, in other things ing knees, the ascent from the orchestra to the stage, it is proper to be just,' was continually in the mouth which frequently, too, represented the declivity of a of Cæsar, in order to make a wrong application of it. mountain, while they lament their wretchedness. His (Sueton., Vit. Cæs., 30.-Compare Cic., de Off., 3, object throughout is emotion, for the sake of which he 21.)-Seductive enticements to the enjoyment of sennot only offends against decorum, but sacrifices the sual love were another article of accusation against connexion of his pieces. He is forcible in his deline- Euripides among the ancients. Thus, for example, it ations of misfortune; but he often lays claim to our must excite our indignation when Hecuba, in order to pity, not for some internal pain of the soul, a pain too stir up Agamemnon to punish Polymnestor, reminds retiring in its nature, and borne in a manly manner, but him of the joys Cassandra had afforded him; who, for mere corporeal suffering. He likes to reduce his having been taken in war, was his slave, according to heroes to a state of beggary; makes them suffer hun- the law of the heroic ages: she is willing to purchase ger and want, and brings them on the stage with all the revenge for a murdered son, by consenting to and ratexterior signs of indigence, covered with rags, as Aris- ifying the degradation of a daughter who is still alive. tophanes so humorously throws in his teeth in the This poet was the first to take for the principal subjecAcharnians (v. 410-448)-Euripides had visited the of a drama the wild passion of a Medea, or the unschools of the philosophers, and takes a pride in allu- natural love of a Phædra; as, otherwise, it may be eading to all sorts of philosophical theories; in my opin-sily understood, from the manners of the ancients, why ion, in a very imperfect manner, so that one cannot un- love, which among them was far less ennobled by delderstand these instructions unless one knows them be-icate feelings, played merely a subordinate part in their forehand. He thinks it too vulgar to believe in the earlier tragedies. Notwithstanding the importance imgods in the simple way of the common people, and parted to female characters, he is notorious for his hatherefore takes care, on every opportunity, to insinuate tred of women; and it cannot be denied, that he brings something of an allegorical meaning, and to give the out a great multitude of sayings concerning the weakworld to understand what an equivocal sort of creed nesses of the female sex, and the superiority of men, he has to boast of. We can distinguish in him a two- as well as a great deal drawn from his experience in fold personage the poet, whose productions were domestic relations, by which he doubtlessly intended dedicated to a religious solemnity, who stood under the to pay court to the men, who, although they did not protection of religion, and must therefore honour it on compose the whole of the public to which he addressed that account likewise, and the sophist, with philosoph-himself, yet formed the most powerful portion of it. A ical pretensions, who, in the midst of the fabulous mir- cutting saying, as well as an epigram, of Sophocles acles connected with religion, from which he drew the (Athen., 13, p. 558.—Id. ib., p. 605), have been hand subjects of his pieces, endeavoured to bring out his ed down to us, in which he explains the pretended hasceptical opinions and doubts. While on the one hand tred of Euripides for women by supposing that he had he shakes the foundations of religion, on the other hand the opportunity of learning their frailty through his own he plays the part of a moralist; in order to become unhallowed desires. In the whole of Euripides' methpopular, he applies to the heroic ages what would hold | od of delineating women, we may perceive, indeed.