to stagger belief. His verses were in the mouths of persons in all
countries in which the Greek language was spoken; if prisoners pleaded
their cause in his words, they were dismissed with freedom; and it is an
historical fact that the unfortunate Greeks who had accompanied NICIAS
in his expedition against Syracuse, and were enslaved in Sicily,
obtained their liberty by repeating some appropriate verses taken from
one of his tragedies.

Sophocles was the great object first of his imitation, and then of his
envy and jealousy. In order to enable himself to contest the palm of
superiority with that great poet, Euripides frequently withdrew from
the haunts of men, and confined himself in a solitary cave near Salamis,
where he composed and finished some of the most excellent of his
tragedies. The full vein of philosophy which pervaded his dramatic
compositions, obtained for him the name of the philosophic poet, and so
loudly did fame proclaim his extraordinary excellence, that Socrates,
who never before visited the theatre, went constantly to attend the
tragedies of Euripides. Alexander admired him beyond all other
writers--Demosthenes confessed that he had learned declamation from his
works, and when Cicero was assassinated, the works of Euripides were
found clutched in his hands.

Together with this rare and felicitous genius, Euripides enjoyed the
blessing of a firm undaunted spirit, a great and bold dignity, and a
courage which nothing could shake. During the representation of one of
his tragedies, the audience took offence at some lines in the
composition and immediately ordered him to strike them out of the piece.
Euripides took fire at their presumption, and indignantly advancing
forward on the stage told the spectators that "he came there to instruct
them, and not to receive instruction." Another time on the first
representation of a new play, the audience expressed great
dissatisfaction at a speech in which he called "riches the _summum
bonum_, and the admiration of gods and men." The poet stepped forward,
reproved the audience for their hasty conclusion, and magisterially
desired them to listen to the play with the silent attention that was
due to it, and they would in the end find their error, as the
catastrophe would show them the just punishment which attended the
lovers of wealth. The last of these anecdotes is a proof of the moral
excellence and chastity, which the Grecian poets were constrained to
observe