humiliation, his anguish, and despair, issues a higher degree of happiness and renown than he had ever hoped to attain. He closes his career at peace with the gods: his incomparable merit is acknowledged by the rival whose success had wounded his pride: he leaves a name behind him which shall be remembered and revered to the latest generations.
We have already observed that the length of our remarks would not be regulated by the value of the pieces to be examined. The Antigone and the Philoctetes, though perhaps neither of them is inferior in beauty to the Ajax, will detain us a much shorter time.
In the Antigone the irony on which the interest depends, is of a kind totally different from that which has been illustrated by the preceding examples. It belongs to that head which we have endeavoured to describe as accompanying the administration of justice human and divine, of that which decides not merely the quarrels of individuals, but the contests of parties and of principles, so far as they are clothed in flesh and blood, and wield the weapons of earthly warfare. The subject of the tragedy is a struggle between Creon and Antigone, not however as private persons maintaining their selfish interests, but as each asserting a cause which its advocate holds to be just and sacred. Each partially succeeds in the struggle, but perishes through the success itself: while their destruction preserves the sanctity of the principles for which they contend. In order to perceive this, we must guard ourselves against being carried away by the impression which the beauty of the heroine's character naturally makes upon our feelings, but which tends to divert us from the right view of Creon's character and conduct: a partiality, to which modern readers are not the less liable, on account of the difficulty they find in entering into the train of religious feeling from which the contest derives its chief importance. In our admiration for Antigone we may be very apt to mistake the poet's irony, and to adopt the sentiments which he puts into her mouth, as his own view of the question, and the parties, while he is holding the balance perfectly even. But to consider the case impartially, it is necessary to observe, in the first place, that Creon is a legitimate ruler, and next, that he acts in the exercise of his legitimate authority. He had received the supreme power by the right of succession, and
