Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/16

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PREFACE.

tested, that Prometheus himself is the character, in the conception and development of which, its author has concentrated his powers in the most full and efficient manner. There is more gorgeousness of imagery in the Seven Chiefs; and more power in the Eumenides; and I should tremble to oppose any one scene in Prometheus, to the Cassandra scene in Agamemnon. The learned Mr. Boyd, who, in addition to many valuable and well-known translations,[1] has furnished the public with an able version of that obscure


  1. Author of, among other works, Select Passages from St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and St. Basil, translated from the Greek. To produce such eloquent translations, the "judicium subtile limatumque," the "teretes et religiosæ aures," attributed to Middleton in Dr. Parr's Preface to Bellendenus, were necessary. But what ears must those be, who deny their sensibility to the "most excellent music" of the writings of the Fathers? We can go to Phrygia for their similitude.