honor of giving a resting-place to the
ashes of their philosopher-poet. He was buried at Pella, but a cenotaph at
Athens showed that his countrymen had not forgotten Euripides. His death
took place B.C. 406.

The inferiority of our author to the greater tragedians, prevents our
feeling much desire to enter upon the respective merits and demerits of his
several plays, especially as we are completely anticipated by Schlegel,
with whose masterly analysis every reader ought to be acquainted.
Nevertheless, a few general remarks may, perhaps, be not wholly
unprofitable.

It has been truly remarked, that tragedy, in no small degree, owed its
downfall to Euripides. Poetry was gradually superseded by rhetoric,
sublimity by earnestness, pathos by reasoning. Thus, Iphigenia and Macaria
give so many good reasons for dying, that the sacrifice appears very small,
and a modern wag in the upper regions of the theatre would, at the end of
the speech of the latter heroine, almost have exclaimed, "Then why don't
you die?"

It has been said, that our poet drew the characters of life as he found
them, but bad as his characters are, they exhibit only a vulgar wickedness.
Unable to portray a Clytaemnestra, he revels in the continual paltriness of
a Menelaus or Ulysses. As if he took a delight in the black side of
humanity, he loves to show the strength of false reasoning, of sophistry
antagonistic to truth, and of cold expediency in opposition to the natural
feelings of humanity. From a similar reason, his occasional attempts at
comedy degenerate into mere farce. We question whether the scene between
Death and Apollo in the "Alcestis," could be surpassed in vulgarity, even
by the modern school of English dramatists, while his exaggerations in the
minor characters are scarcely to be surpassed by the lowest writer of any
period.

Under Euripides, the stage began gradually to approximate more closely to
the ordinary and, at that time, debased character of Athenian society. A
contempt for the Lacedaemonians, a passionate taste for the babbling and
trickery of the forum, and an attempt to depreciate the social position and
influence of the weaker sex, form the most unamiable features of this
change. Yet we must allow, that if Euripides has reveled in the
amiabilities of a Melanippe or a Phaedra, in the gentle revenge of a Medea
or Hecuba, he has at the same time given us an Alcestis, the only real
example of genuine conjugal affection on the