adjustment of the dress, while the mask probably increased the size of the head in due proportion.

This vast theatre was not without its scenery, sometimes of a very costly and artistic character; while the modern appliances for mechanical effects, such as the simulation of thunder and lightning, and the appearance of apparitions, seem to have been well understood.

Here, at the festivals of Bacchus, and particularly at the great Dionysia, held at the end of March and beginning of April, the principal tragic contests took place. On these occasions Athens was crowded, and the great theatre thronged with eager spectators. For the whole day this critical audience sat, applauding or condemning, and often deciding in advance of the judges what play of all those presented was best entitled to the prize.

One play seldom occupied more than an hour and a half in its performance, but often three such plays were connected together in one grand whole called a trilogy. These were usually followed by a comic piece by the same poet, to relieve the seriousness of so much tragedy. A drama which had once gained a prize was not permitted to be exhibited again, unless as a special favor. Thus the "long runs" of modern plays was not a characteristic of the Greek stage. Nor were the authors permitted to accept. pay for their works. They must be content with the approbation of an Athenian audience as their sole and highest reward.

A main distinctive feature of their drama lay in the employment of the chorus. These choristers, from twelve to fifteen in number, and representing persons immediately or remotely connected with the characters of the drama, entered in procession, or in a complicated dance, grouping themselves around the altar to Bacchus, which stood just before the stage.

Frequently the leader, or the whole chorus, took part in

the dialogue. Their principal duty, however, was to diversify the movement of the play by hymns and dirges, sung to the music of flutes, and by artfully contrived and expressive dances.

It may thus be seen that the Athenian drama differed essentially from the productions of the modern playwright. A reference to the works of the great Hellenic authors will show this still more clearly.

ES' CHYLUS.

BORN 525 B.C.

Eschylus, the father of Greek tragedy, was born at Eleu'sis, near Athens, B.c. 525. His family was one of the most ancient and distinguished in Attica. The future poet received every advantage of education, and from childhood was distinguished for mental ardor and boldness of spirit. He is said to have committed the entire poems of Homer to memory, and to have attempted to rival, in his own peculiar field, the great epic poet.

His attention, however, being turned to the drama, he so far surpassed all previous efforts in this field as to make his first work a notable epoch in the tragic art. To the monologue of Phrynichus he added a second actor, diminished the importance of the chorus, and in other ways improved the form of the play. As to its spirit, that he may be said to have originated.

Eschylus joined the armies of Greece during the Persian invasion, fought at Mar'athon, Sal' amis, and Plate'a, and attained such distinction for courage that he and his two brothers were selected for the prize of preeminent bravery at Marathon.

He afterward devoted himself closely to the drama, producing, according to different authorities, from seventy to one hundred tragedies. Of these, but seven are still in

existence. For some reason not well known he left his native city in his old age and went to Sicily, where he was warmly received by King Hiero, a noted patron of literaHere he passed the remainder of his life, in company with Simonides, Pindar, and other poets of renown. died at Ge'la, B.C. 456.

He

The fable goes that, while seated in a public park at Gela, in deep contemplation, an eagle dropped a tortoise on the old poet's bald head, mistaking it for a stone,

"And crushed that brain where tragedy had birth."

Eschylus added new and essential features to the drama, but the plots of his pieces are very simple, and lack ingenuity of construction or solution. His merit lies in his bold, earnest, and elevated tone, in the sublimity of his expressions, and his rich imagery. He represents destiny in its sternest aspect; gigantic heroes, Titans and gods, rather than men, appear on the scene; and his strong and vigorous diction is in accordance with his characters. He excelled in describing the awful and terrible, rather than in displaying the workings of varied motives in the human mind. Yet the subordinate characters in his plays use language fitting to their stations, and less removed from that of common life.

The names of his extant tragedies are, the Prometheus, the Seven against Thebes, the Agamem'non, the Choeph'ori, the Eumen'ides, the Supplicants, and the Persians.

Of these dramas the Prome'theus is, perhaps, the most remarkable. For pure and sustained sublimity it is unsurpassed in the literature of the world. Two vast demons, Strength and Force, accompanied by Vulcan, appear in a remote, unpeopled desert. There, on a lofty rock, near the sea, Prometheus is chained by Vulcan, "a reward for his disposition to be tender to mankind." While Vulcan binds him, Prometheus utters no sound—it is Vulcan alone that

complains of the terrible task which Jupiter has assigned him. Not until the ministers of doom have departed does the prisoner burst forth with his grand apostrophe:

"O Air divine! O ye swift-winged Winds,—
Ye sources of the rivers, and ye waves,
That dimple o'er old Ocean like his smiles,—
Mother of all, O Earth! and thou the orb,
All-seeing, of the Sun, behold and witness
What I, a god, from the stern gods endure.

When shall my doom be o'er? - Be o'er!-to me
The future hides no riddle-nor can woe

Come unprepared! It fits me then to brave
That which must be; for what can turn aside

The dark course of the grim Necessity?"-Bulwer.

While he thus soliloquizes the air becomes fragrant with odors, and faintly stirs with the rustle of coming wings. The Daughters of Ocean- the chorus of the play-come to console the Titan, and utter their complaints against the tyranny of Jove. Ocean himself appears and vainly counsels the chained captive to submit to Jupiter. Prometheus is unyielding. He tells how his giving fire to the human race and infusing hope into the minds of men, was the cause of his punishment, and predicts a terrible danger to the Olympian deities, which he will never reveal till released from bondage. The Ocean'ides again sing:

"One have I seen with equal tortures riven —
An equal god; in adamantine chains

Ever and evermore,

The Titan Atlas, crushed, sustains
The mighty mass of mighty heaven;
And the whirling cataracts roar

With a chime to the Titan's groans,
And the depth that receives them moans;
And from vaults that the earth are under
Black Hades is heard in thunder;

While from the founts of white-waved rivers flow
Melodious sorrows, uniting with his woe."-Bulwer.

Prometheus continues to detail the benefits which he has conferred upon mankind, and finally discourses on the power of Necessity, which is sovereign over Jupiter himself. Even this supreme god cannot escape his doom. "His doom," ask the Oceanides, "is he not evermore to reign?" "That thou may'st not learn," replies the prophet. "In the preservation of this secret depends my future freedom."

Finally Mercury arrives, charged by Jupiter to learn from Prometheus the nature of the danger that awaits him. The Titan haughtily defies the threats and warnings of the herald, and declares that whatever may be done to him, he is at least immortal — he cannot die.

Mercury departs, and the menace of Jupiter is fulfilledamid storm and earthquake both rock and prisoner are struck by the lightning of the god into the dark abyss.

That is the whole. A god chained to a rock; listening to sympathizing visitors; sternly refusing to yield to his great foe; and, in the spirit of his name, which signifies. forethought, beholding in the far future ruin, prepared by unchanging destiny, for the Olympian deities themselves. Yet in this captive Titan we have a conception unequaled in literature, if we except the Satan of Milton's great epic.

The extant play was probably but the second of a trilogy, the first of which may have shown the crime of Prometheus, while the last may have had for its subject Prometheus Freed, his restoration to his godlike station.

One trilogy of Eschylus is fortunately preserved to us, that comprising the "Agamemnon," the "Choephori," and the "Eumenides." The first represents the death of the great Argive King, the second the vengeance of his son Ores'tes on his murderers, and the third the trial and deliverance of Orestes from the pursuing Furies.

Since this trilogy has been considered one of the greatest works of human art, we will give a concise description of