Euphorion, and Cynægirus, were in the same action, and signalized themselves on that glorious day. In the sea-fight off Salamis Aminias lost an arm, and bore away the first prize for valour in that well-fought action: it so happened at the representation of one of Eschylus's plays, that the people rose against him on account of some attack he had made upon their superstitions, and were proceeding to stone him to death, when this Aminias, putting aside his mantle, exhibited his amputated arm, and turned their fury aside from the devoted poet; an anecdote, which at once demonstrates their ferocity and their magnanimity. Eschylus, though he had just reason to value himself highly on his poetical talents, yet, like Alcæus and Archilochus, continued through life to hold his military character more at heart than his literary one, and directed to be engraved on his tomb-stone a distich in long and short verse, in which he appeals 'to the field of Marathon and the long-haired Mede' to witness to his valour; by the Mede he probably means the general Datis. The personal gallantry for which Eschylus and his brethren were so conspicuous, gives a strong and manly colouring to his compositions; it is the characteristic of his genius: and his pen, like his sword, is a weapon of terror: the spectacle, which his drama exhibits, is that of one sublime, simple scene of awful magnificence; his sentiment and style are in unison with his subject, and though he is charged with having written his tragedies in a state of inebriety, to which he was in general addicted, still they do not betray the traces of a confused imagination, as Sophocles insinuated, though occasionally they may of an inflated one; and it was a weakness in Sophocles (to give his motive no worse a name) to pronounce of Eschylus, that he did not know what he did, although he did things well;' as 6 if he had written in a state of absolute intoxication and mental disability; an imputation which convicts itself. Eschylus's excess was the vice of his time and nation, I might add of his profession also as a soldier; and one should almost suspect that he considered it as a becoming quality in a hero, seeing that he had the hardiness to exhibit Jason drunk upon the scene, an attempt which stands recorded as the first of the sort, though afterward he was followed in it by Epicharmus and Crates, comic poets, and in latter times even by the sententious Euripides himself; in short, the literary annals of Greece are deeply stained with this excess, and the stage at one period was far from discouraging it. Eschylus not only instructed his chorus in the dances incidental to the piece, but superintended also and arranged the dresses of the performers with the most correct precision, and this he did in a taste so dignified and characteristic, that the priests and sacrificing ministers of the temple did not scruple to copy and adopt his fashions in their habiliments; he did not indeed perform on the stage as Phrynichus did, but he never permitted the intervention of a master, as many others did: the dances which he composed for his tragedy of The Seven Chiefs, were particularly apposite to the scene, and were performed with extraordinary success and applause: he brought fifty furies at once on the stage in the chorus of his Eumenides, and displayed them with such accompaniments and force of effect, that the whole theatre was petrified with horror, pregnant women miscarried on the spot, and the magistracy interposed for the prevention of such spectacles in future, and limited the number of the dancers, annexing a penalty to the breach of the restriction. Aristophanes has an allusion to the Eumenides of Eschylus in his comedy of the Plutus, (Act ii. Scene 4.) where Chremylus and Blepsidemus being on the scene are suddenly accosted by Poverty in the person of a squalid old woman, and whilst they are questioning who she may be, Blepsidemus cries out Some fury from the scenes of Eschylus, Some stage Erinnys; look! her very face CHREM. But where's her firebrand? BLEPS. Oh! there's a penalty for that. ap That That the poet Eschylus was of a candid mind pears from his well-known declaration, viz. his tragedies were but scraps from the magnificent repasts of Homer;' that he was of a lofty mind is from nothing more evident, than from his celebrated appeal upon a certain occasion, when the prize was voted to his competitor evidently against justice'I appeal to posterity,' says Eschylus, to posterity I consecrate my works, in the assurance that they will meet that reward from time, which the partiality of my contemporaries refuses to bestow.' Though the candour of Eschylus called his tragedies fragments or scraps from Homer, and seemed to think it sufficient honour to be able to wield with tolerable grace one weapon out of the armoury of this gigantic spirit, yet I would submit to the reader's judgment, whether the tragic poem does not demand a stronger exertion of the mental faculties, within the compass of its composition, than the epic poem. In a drama, where every thing must be in action, where characters must be strongly marked and closely compressed, the passious all in arms, and the heart alternately seized by terror and subdued by pity, where the diction must never sleep in detail, nor languish in description, but be lofty yet not dilated, eloquent but not loquacious, I have no conception how the human genius can be strained to greater energy: at the same time it must be admitted, that the continuation of exertion, which the epic requires, inferior though it may be in force, falls heaviest on the poet of that department; the scope of his work is much more diffused, and history perhaps presents so few fit subjects to his choice, that we cannot wonder at the general predilection of the literary world for dramatic composition: least of all can we want a reason why the Greeks, an animated and ingenious race of writers, addicted to spectacle and devoted to music and dancing, should fall with such avidity upon the flowery province of the drama. But when they made it a contest as well as a study, when they hung up wreaths and crowns as the rewards of victory, and turned dramatic spectacles into a kind of Olympic games, they brought a crowd of competitors to the lists. The magistrate generally, and private citizens in particular cases, furnished the exhibition at an immense expense, and with a degree of splendour we have little conception of. The happy poet crowned with the wreath of triumph, presenting himself to the acclamations of a crowded theatre, felt such a flood of triumph, as in some instances to sink under the ecstasy and expire on the spot; whilst on the other hand, disappointment operating upon susceptible and sanguine minds, has been more than once productive of effects as fatal: such minds, though they claim our pity, do not merit our respect, and it is a consolation to reflect, that where there is a genius like that of Eschylus, there is generally found a concomitant magnanimity, which can disregard, with conscious dignity, the false misjudging decrees of the vulgar. The appeal which Eschylus made to posterity, was soon verified, for after his death the Athenians held his name in the highest veneration, and made a decree for furnishing the expense of representing his tragedies out of the public purse; he carried away many prizes during his life, and many more were decreed to his tragedies after his death: a statue was erected in memory of him at Athens, and a picture was painted descriptive of his valour in the fight at Marathon. Amongst other reasons suggested for his leaving Athens, some assert that he retired in disgust at be-ing superseded in a prize by Sophocles, who was a very young competitor; but a vague assertion of this invidious sort is readily confuted by the character of Eschylus, to which it is not reconcilable upon any other than the strongest authority. It is agreed that he removed to Sicily to the court of King Hiero, where he was very honourably received, and after three years' residence, died and was buried in a sumptuous and public manner: the fable of the eagle dropping a tortoise on his head, and his being killed by the blow, was probably allegorical, and emblematical of his genius, age, and decay. Valerius Maximus however gives the story for truth, and refers to the authorities of Aristophanes, Pliny, and Suidas, concluding his account with the following expression -Eoque ictu origo et principium fortioris tragedia extinctum est. He died at the age of sixty-nine years, after a life spent alternately in great labour and great excess. This event took place in the first year of Olymp. lxxxi. In Olymp. lxx. when he was between twenty and thirty years old, he contested the prize with Pratinas and Charilus, when Myrus was archon; Charilus was an Athenian, and wrote tragedies to the amount of one hundred and fifty, of all which not even a fragment survives. At the battle of Marathon, Eschylus was thirty-seven years old: twelve years |