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PREFACE.
went to Sicily, to die. In that place of exile he wrote his epitaph instead of tragedies, calling with his dying voice on the grove of Marathon[1] and the conquered Persians, as the only witnesses of his glory. "If thorns be in thy path," saith Marcus Antoninus,[2] "turn aside." But where should he turn, who would avoid the ingratitude and changefulness of man?
Among those who have passed judgment upon Æschylus, it is remarkable how many have passed a similar one to that of the Athenians, when, according to Suidas, they "broke down the benches" previous to his departure for Sicily;—a phrase interpreted by Scaliger to signify a final condemnation of his work. He is "damn'd by faint praise;" by an alternate acknow-
