Gok, C. F., Die Weinrebe und ihre Früchte. With 30 plates. Part III. to V. Jäger, Neuestes Gemälde von London. 2 Vols. 8vo. Hamburg. 13s. 6d. 9s. 4 plates. Néo-physiologie du goût, par ordre alphabétique. 8vo. Paris. 11s. Fol. Vol. III. 8vo. Gebke, Ritterorden, Verdienstkreuze, und Medaillen des Russischen Kaiserreichs. 4to. Leipz. 1l. Lindner, F. W., Musikalischer Jugendfreund, oder Sammlung der vorzüglichsten im zwei, drei und vier stimmigen Gesänge, mit Begleitung des Pianofortes. Part I. 5th improved Ed. 4to. Leipz. 7s. Rieger, G., Theoretisch practische Anleitung die General, Bass- und Harmonienlehre. 8vo. Brunn. 6s. Scheibler, Schriften über musikalische und physikalische Tonmessung. 8vo. Crefeld. 2s. 6d. Will shortly appear. Biblioteca dei scrittori moderni d'Italia. Part I. 8vo. Munich. Düntzer, H., Kritik und Entwickelung der Oden des Horaz. Bruns. Eichhoff, F. G., Essai sur la langue et la littérature des Slaves Russes, Serviens, Bo hémiens, Polonais et Lettons. 8vo. Paris. Grillparzer, F., Hero und Leander. Trauerspiel. Vienna. Traum ein Leben. Trauerspiel. Vienna. Wehe dem, der lügt. Trauerspiel. Vienna. Gutenbergs Album. 8vo. Bruns. 9s. In royal 4to. elegantly bound, 51. Shakspeare in der Heimath. Schauspiel. Schleusingen. Icones plantarum rariorum horti regii botanici Berolinensis. In 6 Parts. 4to. Berlin. Luther, M., Geistliche Lieder und deren bei seinem Leben gebrauchliche Singweisen. Leipzig. Pascal's, B., Theologische und philosophische Werke, aus dem französischen. Part III. 8vo. Berlin. Richter, J., De Aeschyli, Sophoclis, Euripidis interpretibus graecis. 8vo. Berlin. LONDON: PRINTED BY C. ROWORTH AND SONS, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR. THE FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-Ariadne.-Die TRAGISCHE KUNST der Griechen in ihrer Entwickelung, und in ihrem Zusammenhange mit der VOLKSPOESIE. Von O. F. Gruppe. (The Tragic Art of the Greeks. By O. F. Gruppe.) Berlin. 1834. WHEN Schlegel (in 1816) gave to the world his celebrated dramatic lectures, it was natural in the then state of our criticism to suppose that he wished to make a sensation in the literary commonwealth by over-trumpeting the Greek drama altogether, and especially by outrageously bepraising Eschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, at the expense of Euripides. What effect, we may now reasonably ask, has experience of more than twenty years had in confirming, weakening, or in any wise modifying the critical decisions of the German Aristarchus? Where does our English criticism of the Greek theatre stand at the present moment? Have we been moving at all? And if we have been moving, have we advanced in the line of Schlegel, and beyond Schlegel? or have we been forced to retrace the rash steps we ventured in his track, after discovering him to be a quack and a deceiver, a big declaimer of sublime nothings, after the true German fashion, as we charitably imagine that fashion to be? Have we, with genuine British productiveness, pioneered a new path for ourselves, and entered heart and hand into living fellowship with ancient Greek poetry, by immediate and direct wedlock? Or do we still curiously amuse our academic leisure with measuring mechanical cæsuras and fingering Cretic endings; and paring the nails, and "unrolling the mummy-bandages" of antiquity, and in various other edifying ways calling the ancients Lord, Lord, and doing not the things which they say ? The answer to these questions is short. Mitchell and Sandford and other native scholars have published to the British public that the German was quite right in the matter of Aristophanes. The pious labours of Blomfield, Scholefield, and others seem to be a clear admission that he was also right in the matter of Eschylus. As to Sophocles, no person ever ventured to doubt the justice of his praise; though perhaps here and there a cold English litterateur might have venom enough in his dry, VOL. XXIV. NO. XLVIII. R dusty heart to criticize down the fine enthusiasm of the German into "rhodomontade." With Euripides the case is, we believe, yet sub judice; but we are inclined to think that, among those who interest themselves in these matters, there prevails a pretty general feeling in favour of the scourged tragedian, and an inclination, by the application of leniments and soothing drugs, to smooth away the point of Schlegel's ridicule. But is this any thing more than a feeling? a very amiable and pretty feeling indeed, but withal a prejudice, arising more from superstitious reverence for antiquity than religious love of truth. Has any person succeeded in disproving the charges which the acute German brought against the blundering Greek? or do all these charges stand unrefuted in the last edition of the Greek theatre, and the last classical article of the Quarterly Review? Let us inquire calmly. We assert that the accusations of Schlegel will stand the test of the most severe and scrutinizing criticism, and moreover that he brought no charge against the tragedian which does not lie clearly implied, if not explicitly said, in the works of the most acute and discerning of the ancients. The German knew well what ground he was standing on; and he cites expressly the authority of Aristotle and Quinctilian to support his views. Add to this the authority of Aristophanes, now (thanks to Welcher and Mitchell) no longer sneered at by prim martinets of criticism, as a low buffoon and a common jester, but held up to public admiration as at once the journalist, the critic, the censor, the dramatist of the most polished, and the prime wit of the most witty age of Greece-something above Rabelais, but not quite so high as Shakspeare. Him however we pass. But what says Aristotle? He compliments Euripides certainly as the most tragic of the tragedians, but in a manner and in a connection which altogether precludes the supposition that he meant by this phrase to crown the name of Euripides with serious dramatic eulogy. The philosopher (Poet. c. 13) is discoursing about the effect of dismal and, what we call, tragic catastrophes in the drama; and, in accordance with his own theory of moving pity and terror, he (somewhat narrowly, doubtless) awards the superiority to those dramas which end in the blackest mischance is dUCTUXIV TEXEUTWol. Medea, according to this theory, is a better drama than the Eumenides, and Hecuba than Philoctetes and Euripides, he adds, is in this respect much to be praised, because ει και τα αλλα μη ευ οικονομεί, αλλα τραγι κωτατος γε των ποιητων φαίνεται. What value is to be placed upon Aristotle's opinion in a matter of this kind we shall presently inquire; but the praise, taken at its highest value, is very scant indeed. Euripides, in so far as his catastrophes are concerned, is very savage and bloody, and therefore "though in other respects he manages badly," yet in this he may be considered "the most tragic of the poets." Alas! for poor John Ford, if we had nothing more to say for his great play than that he murders half-adozen respectable persons in the course of it, and in the last scene we find the stage direction יין "Enter Giovanni with a bloody heart on his dagger And yet this much, and no more, is the compliment which the Stagyrite pays to Euripides when he calls him the most tragic of the poets. We ourselves are willing to concede much more. We say that Euripides is not only the most tragic of the poets in respect of bloody catastrophes (though the contrary is true of many of his plays), but also the most pathetic in respect of moving eloquence, and the most pleasing in respect of sweet, flowing and elegant declamation. But with all these accomplishments we do not make him a dramatist, or the shadow of a dramatist. What then?-a lyrist? Unquestionably. A rhetorician; this chiefly, and beyond all doubt, as Cicero well knew, himself the great pattern, and Quinctilian, the great master, of Roman eloquence. Quinctilian also, like the Stagyrite, seems to eulogize Euripides. But alas! only seems. His praise is pure damnation, not because it is faint, but because it is too strong the wrong way; for a man may as well commend a song by saying that it is very epigramatic, as commend a tragedy by saying that it is very rhetorical, and (what is worse) very forensic. These are Quinctilian's words: and for the sake of sound sense and impartial criticism we shall quote them at length :-"Illud quidem nemo non fatentur necesse est, iis, qui se ad agendum comparent utiliorem longe Euripidem fore. Nam is et in sermone magis accedit oratorio generi; et sententiis densus: et in iis quæ a sapientibus tradita sunt, pene ipsis par, et in dicendo et respondendo, cuilibet eorum qui fuerunt in foro diserti, comparandus. In affectibus vero cum omnibus mirus, tum in iis qui miseratione constant facile præcipuus." In plain English, if a man wishes to speak smooth words by the hour, to stave off the decision of a hopeless case, to whitewash the rottenness of knavish particulars by the speciousness of virtuous generals, to move a silly jury to tears over the self-created miseries of a fool ;-in such cases let him study Euripides. This is the advice of Quinctilian; and had the poet of the Medea written in English, and not in Greek, we should have most heartily joined in enforcing the advice on our young barristers. As it is we must confess ourselves exceedingly sceptical as to the amount of real benefit to be derived by English speakers from the study either of Greek orators or Greek oratorical play-writers. Life is too short, and art too long, for every man's professional Iliad to begin with the egg of Leda. But as to the Greeks and the Romans (who all spoke Greek) Quinctilian was undoubtedly right; and indeed he says no more than what Aristophanes had said before him (though in a different style) when he laughed the sensitive poet away to Macedonia (see Thomas Magister's Life) by calling him TINTES PRATION xavixa (the poet of forensic phrases) and other surnames too true to be relished. Euripides was a very king of rhetoricians; so all his biographers inform us ; πολλους προσέξευρε λόγους και pyropeias, says Elmsley's anonymous biographer; and though but the son of a vintner and a seller of kitchen herbs (Aristophanes knew better than Moschopulus), yet he could afford to take lessons from Prodicus, the famous itinerant sophist, who charged fifty drachmæ every time he opened his mouth, and was at last put to death by the Athenians (as Xenophon relates) for corrupting the youth of the city. There is indeed great reason to suppose that Euripides altogether mistook his calling in applying himself to the drama; and to judge from the notice of his biographers (there are three besides Suidas) compared with the very marked character of his works, we feel ourselves warranted in saying that he was intended by nature, perhaps for a painter, perhaps for a barrister, most probably for a union of sophist and philosopher-certainly not for a dramatist. Moschopulus and Suidas tell us that he applied himself to drama only after he had seen, by the sad example of Anaxagoras, that it was an unsafe thing for a Greek to philosophize: what therefore he could not say in his own person without danger of the hemlock, he could say by the mouth of others in fictitious dialogue. This was not a very straightforward proceeding certainly; and the more blameable for this reason that the Athenian tragedians were all sacred poets, and attached by virtue of their office to the religion of the state. That this story is true we have pretty strong evidence in the eighteen surviving tragedies; all his characters, men, women, and children, heralds, nurses, and drunken deities, are ever philosophizing, in season and out of season; what we call dialogue is with him oration: and the insinuation and peroration of every speech is a philosophic gnome: nothing with him is done or said without cause shown, as the lawyers say; every character is a herald of himself; no one is virtuous without discoursing on his virtue; no one is natural (when it chances to be) without a formal treatise on the "vivere convenienter naturæ ;" every hero and heroine is lavish of life, generally without a dramatic motive, never without a rhetorical reason: a mother will not even weep |