been
more than once revised and reconsidered, he was still under some
hesitations; but at last had well-nigh resolved, as from the first it
was clear he would do, on publishing it. This occupied some occasional
portion of his thoughts. But his grand private affair, I believe, was
now _Strafford_; to which, or to its adjuncts, all working hours were
devoted. Sterling's notions of Tragedy are high enough. This is what he
writes once, in reference to his own task in these weeks: "Few, I fancy,
know how much harder it is to write a Tragedy than to realize or be one.
Every man has in his heart and lot, if he pleases, and too many whether
they please or no, all the woes of OEdipus and Antigone. But it takes
the One, the Sophocles of a thousand years, to utter these in the
full depth and harmony of creative song. Curious, by the way, how that
Dramatic Form of the old Greek, with only some superficial changes,
remains a law not only for the stage, but for the thoughts of all Poets;
and what a charm it has even for the reader who never saw a theatre. The
Greek Plays and Shakspeare have interested a hundred as books, for one
who has seen their writings acted. How lightly does the mere clown, the
idle school-girl, build a private theatre in the fancy, and laugh or
weep with Falstaff and Macbeth: with how entire an oblivion of the
artificial nature of the whole contrivance, which thus compels them
to be their own architects, machinists, scene-painters, and actors! In
fact, the artifice succeeds,--becomes grounded in the substance of the
soul: and every one loves to feel how he is thus brought face to face
with the brave, the fair, the woful and the great of all past ages;
looks into their eyes, and feels the beatings of their hearts; and
reads, over the shoulder, the secret written tablets of the busiest
and the largest brains; while the Juggler, by whose cunning the whole
strange beautiful absurdity is set in motion, keeps himself hidden;
sings loud with a mouth unmoving as that of a statue, and makes the
human race cheat itself unanimously and delightfully by the illusion
that he preordains; while as an obscure Fate, he sits invisible, and
hardly lets his being be divined by those who cannot flee him. The Lyric
Art is childish, and the Epic barbarous, compared to this. But of the
true and perfect Drama it may be said, as of even higher mysteries,
Who is sufficient for these things?"--On this _Tragedy of Strafford_,
writing it and