[13] Amongst the questions which occurred to me as requiring an answer, in
connection with this revival, was one with regard to the comparative
fitness of the Antigone for giving a representative idea of the Greek
stage. I am of opinion that it was the worst choice which could have been
made; and for the very reason which no doubt governed that choice, viz.--
because the austerity of the tragic passion is disfigured by a love
episode. Rousseau in his letter to D'Alembert upon his article _Geneve_,
in the French Encyclopedie, asks,--'_Qui est-ce qui doute que, sur nos
theatres, la meilleure piece de Sophocle ne tombat tout-a-plat?_' And his
reason (as collected from other passages) is--because an interest derived
from the passion of sexual love can rarely be found on the Greek stage,
and yet cannot be dispensed with on that of Paris. But why was it so rare
on the Greek stage? Not from accident, but because it did not harmonize
with the principle of that stage, and its vast overhanging gloom. It is
the great infirmity of the French, and connected constitutionally with the
gayety of their temperament, that they cannot sympathize with this
terrific mode of grandeur. We can. And for _us_ the choice should have
been more purely and severely Grecian; whilst the slenderness of the plot
in any Greek tragedy, would require a far more effective support from
tumultuous movement in the chorus. Even the French are not uniformly
insensible to this Grecian grandeur. I remember that Voltaire, amongst
many just remarks on the Electra of Sophocles, mixed with others that are
_not_ just, bitterly condemns this demand for a love fable on the French
stage, and illustrates its extravagance by the French tragedy on the same
subject, of Crebillon. He (in default of any more suitable resource) has
actually made Electra, whose character on the Greek stage is painfully
vindictive, in love with an imaginary son of Aegisthus, her father's
murderer. Something should also have been said of Mrs. Leigh Murray's
Ismene, which was very effective in supporting and in relieving the