d castrated of its infinities, and (what is worse) of its
moral infinities.

You must imagine not only everything which there is dreadful in fact,
but everything which there is mysterious to the imagination in the
pariah condition, before you can approach the Heracleidae. Yet, even with
this pariah, how poorly do most men conceive it as nothing more than a
civil, a police, an economic affair!

Valckenaer, an admirable Greek scholar, was not a man of fine
understanding; nor, to say the truth, was Porson. Indeed, it is
remarkable how mean, vulgar, and uncapacious has been the range of
intellect in many first-rate Grecians; though, on the other hand, the
reader would deeply deceive himself if he should imagine that Greek is
an attainment other than difficult, laborious, and requiring exemplary
talents. Greek taken singly is, to use an indispensable Latin word,
_instar_, the knowledge of all other languages. But men of the highest
talents have often beggarly understandings. Hence, in the case of
Valckenaer, we must derive the contradictions in his diatribe. He
practises this intolerable artifice; he calls himself [Greek:
philenripideios]; bespeaks an unfair confidence from the reader; he
takes credit for being once disposed to favour and indulge Euripides. In
this way he accredits to the careless reader all the false charges or
baseless concessions which he makes on any question between Euripides
and his rivals. Such men as Valckenaer it is who are biased and
inflected beforehand, without perceiving it, by all the commonplaces of
criticism. These, it is true, do not arise out of mere shadows. Usually
they have a foundation in some fact or modification. What they fail in
is, in the just interpretation of these truths, and in the reading of
their higher relations. 'The Correggiosity of Correggio' was precisely
meant for Valckenaer. The Sophocleity of Sophocles he is keen to
recognise, and the superiority of Sophocles as an artist is undeniable;
nor is it an advantage difficult to detect. On the other hand, to be
more Homeric than Homer is no praise for a tragic poet. It is far more
just, pertinent praise, it is a ground of far more interesting praise,
that Euripides is granted by his undervalues to be the most _tragic_
([Greek: tragichotatos]) of tragic poets. After that he can afford to
let Sophocles be '[Greek: Homerichotos], who, after all, is not '[Greek:
Homerichotutos], so long as AEschylus survives. But even so far