theatre; just as various architectural devices were employed to swell the
volume of sound. Finally. I repeat my sincere opinion, that the general
indistinctness of the expression was, on principles of taste, an
advantage, as harmonizing with the stately and sullen monotony of the
Greek tragedy. Grandeur in the attitudes, in the gestures, in the groups,
in the processions--all this was indispensable: but, on so vast a scale as
the mighty cartoons of the Greek stage, an Attic artist as little regarded
the details of physiognomy, as a great architect would regard, on the
frontispiece of a temple, the miniature enrichments that might be suitable
in a drawing-room.

With these views upon the Grecian theatre, and other views that it might
oppress the reader to dwell upon in this place, suddenly in December last
an opportunity dawned--a golden opportunity, gleaming for a moment amongst
thick clouds of impossibility that had gathered through three-and-twenty
centuries--for seeing a Grecian tragedy presented on a British stage, and
with the nearest approach possible to the beauty of those Athenian pomps
which Sophocles, which Phidias, which Pericles created, beautified,
promoted. I protest, when seeing the Edinburgh theatre's _programme_,
that a note dated from the Vatican would not have startled me more, though
sealed with the seal of the fisherman, and requesting the favor of my
company to take coffee with the Pope. Nay, less: for channels there were
through which I might have compassed a presentation to his Holiness; but
the daughter of Oedipus, the holy Antigone, could I have hoped to see her
'in the flesh?' This tragedy in an English version, [9] and with German
music, had first been placed before the eyes and ears of our countrymen at
Convent Garden during the winter of 1844--5. It was said to have
succeeded. And soon after a report sprang up, from nobody knew where, that
Mr. Murray meant to reproduce it in Edinburgh.