poet in another. We must, however, principally explain the prolific
capability of mythology, for the purposes of tragedy, by the principle
which we observe in operation throughout the history of Grecian mind and
art; that, namely, the tendency which predominated for the time,
assimilated everything else to itself. As the heroic legend with all its
manifold discrepancies was easily developed into the tranquil fulness and
light variety of epic poetry, so afterwards it readily responded to the
demands which the tragic writers made upon it for earnestness, energy, and
compression; and whatever in this sifting process of transformation fell
out as inapplicable to tragedy, afforded materials for a sort of half
sportive, though still ideal representation, in the subordinate species
called the _satirical drama_.

I hope I shall be forgiven, if I attempt to illustrate the above
reflections on the essence of Ancient Tragedy, by a comparison borrowed
from the plastic arts, which will, I trust, be found somewhat more than a
mere fanciful resemblance.

The Homeric epic is, in poetry, what bas-relief is in sculpture, and
tragedy the distinct isolated group.

The poetry of Homer, sprung from the soil of legend, is not yet wholly
detached from it, even as the figures of a bas-relief adhere to an
extraneous backing of the original block. These figures are but slightly
raised, and in the epic poem all is painted as past and remote. In bas-
relief the figures are usually in profile, and in the epos all are
characterized in the simplest manner in relief; they are not grouped
together, but follow one another; so Homer's heroes advance, one by one,
in succession before us. It has been remarked that the _Iliad_ is not
definitively closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to