sustained by
unconquerable will, over the oppression of physical force, the tyranny
of resistless power. It exhibits the charity of the Saviour in the
_Paradise Regained_, united to the indomitable spirit of Satan, who is
chained on the burning lake, in _Paradise Lost_. It is the prophetical
wail of humanity, so often doomed to suffer in the best of causes from
external injustice.

The _Iphigenia in Aulis_ is the most perfect of all the tragedies of
Euripides, and the best adapted for modern representation. The
well-known story of the daughter of the King of Men being devoted to
sacrifice, to appease the angry deities, and procure favourable gales
for the fleet on the way to Troy, and of the agony of her parents under
the infliction, is developed with all the pathos and eloquence of which
that great master of the tragic art was capable. Nothing can exceed the
progressive interest which the character of Iphigenia excites. At first,
horrorstruck, and shrinking with the timidity of her sex from the axe of
the priest, she gradually rises when her fate appears inevitable, and at
length devotes herself for her country with a woman's devotion, and more
than a man's fortitude. In the French plays on the same subject, a love
episode is introduced between her and Achilles; but the simplicity of
the Greek original appears preferable, in which she had no previous
acquaintance with the son of Peleus, and he is interested in her fate,
and strives to avert it, only from finding that his name, as her
betrothed, had, without his knowledge, been used by Agamemnon to induce
Clytemnestra to bring her to the Grecian camp. Doubtless, the tenderness
of Racine in the love-scenes between her and Achilles, is inimitable;
but the simplicity of the Greek original, where grief on her parents'
part for her loss, and her own heroic self-sacrifice on the altar of
patriotic duty, are undisturbed by any other emotion, is yet more
touching, and far more agreeable to ancient manners, where love on the
woman's part, previous to marriage, was, as now in the East, almost
unknown.

In these great masterpieces of ancient art, the unity of emotions is
strictly preserved; and it is that, joined to the lofty moral tone
preserved through the drama, which constitutes their unequalled charm.
This, however, is not always the case in the Greek tragedies. They are
not insensible to the effect of a high moral tone, or the development of
poetical justice; but they did