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EURIPIDES.
[CHAP. VI.
with the growing tradition of what each great actor finds, or perhaps puts into the text. Thus we read Shakspere by the light of Kembles, and Keans, and Irvings—a far different kind of commentators from the Hermanns, and Valckenaers, and Elmsleys, and Musgraves, whom the classical scholar is required to read. Until, in fact, there arises a great tragic actor, who is also a thorough Greek scholar, we shall probably remain in ignorance of many of the finest acting points by which Euripides made his characters to breathe and burn before his Athenian audience.
