place himself almost simultaneously in the situation of all his characters—of a sympathy with the beings of his own imagination, which will enable him to think with their minds, to feel with their hearts, and speak with their tongues, as if they were real characters—to become at once a Shylock and a Portia—a Hamlet and the Queen Mother. So to conceive and to paint character, as to clothe it in the garb of nature, to model it to symmetry, and to inspire it with the animation of life, not merely in description, but in representation—so to invent a fable as to make it at once probable and interesting, to lead us into the society of men and women in the moment of suffering or heroism, and to light the whole with a radiant atmosphere of poetry—from the frequency of the failure, must be concluded to be one of the most arduous of the enterprises of genius. Hence the miscarriages of men, even of great poetical talents; of whom some have brought upon the stage characters so cold and so correct, so stiff and so formal, so unlike the men and women with whom we mingle in real life, that we have no more sympathy with them than with the inhabitants of the moon. They are mere puppets, through which their authors pour forth their declamations on stale morality, and without the smallest regard to propriety; every thing is spoken in the same tone, and with the same emphasis. With these writers, every breeze is a whirlwind, and every feeling an ecstasy. They do not suit the language to the sentiment, nor study the processes of Nature, who never errs in fitness, but gives to every stream its own particular key-sound, according to the weight of its waters and the rapidity of its descent. These hints, crude and undigested as they are, will be of practical application in my remarks on Greek Tragedy.
Æschylus, in a glorious age, had perhaps a fairer claim to originality than any of his contemporaries. He did not improve, but create tragedy. He not only paved the way in which Shakspeare was afterwards to move with a splendour that should eclipse his own and every other name, but he gave to the acting manager the mechanism of scenery that was to represent the beauties of the landscape, not merely to delight the eye of the spectator, but to give a fit place for the action.
The claims of this writer to the high reputation which he has obtained among the poets of Greece, is now to be examined; and I shall begin with a short analysis of the play of Prometheus. It is founded on a well-known fable. In the wars of the gods, Prometheus had joined the party of Jupiter, to whom he gave important aid in the unnatural expulsion of his father, Saturn, from the throne of heaven. Jupiter, however, forgetful of past services and of solemn oaths, was no sooner seated on the throne, than he began to exercise his authority in acts of the most abominable tyranny over gods and men. His amusement was in insulting the subject gods, but men he determined to exterminate, by at once depriving them of food and fire. Prometheus was not like the submissive throng of courtier gods, so far corrupted by the contagion of servility, as not to feel pity for the distresses of mankind. In defiance of the tyrant, he interposed to save them from the threatened destruction, and not only gave them fire and food, but instructed them in many of the useful and ornamental arts. Jupiter, enraged at this act of disobedience to his despotic mandates, condemned him to be chained to a rock on Mount Caucasus, there to remain till he should expiate his crime, and offer submission; and this sentence was carried into execution with many circumstances of cruelty and insult. This preface was necessary to the right understanding of the play.
The main object of Æschylus, in writing this tragedy, was to exhibit to his countrymen, in Jupiter, a ferocious tyrant, stained with every crime; and in Prometheus, a suffering patriot. Among the Athenians, such a subject could not fail to awaken the deepest interest. Never was an altar erected to freedom in any country on earth where her flame burnt purer than in that city; and this drama was an offering worthy of such a shrine.
The fable is more than commonly simple, and all the characters mythological or allegorical except one. They are, Prometheus—a Chorus of Ocean Nymphs—Io, the Daughter of Inachus—Ocean—Vulcan—Force—and Violence;—of whom the two latter, under the direction of Vulcan, bind Prometheus to a rock with chains of adamant. In their presence, neither pain, nor the insults of Force, who is a well painted executioner—nor the sympathy of Vulcan, who is his kinsman—
