dramas are such as were selected by the Alexandrian critics as the
foundation for the study of the older Grecian literature, not because they
alone were deserving of estimation, but because they afforded the best
illustration of the various styles of tragic art. Of each of the two older
poets, we have seven pieces remaining; in these, however, we have,
according to the testimony of the ancients, several of their most
distinguished productions. Of Euripides we have a much greater number, and
we might well exchange many of them for other works which are now lost;
for example, for the satirical dramas of Achaeus, Aeschylus, and
Sophocles, or, for the sake of comparison with Aeschylus, for some of
Phrynichus' pieces, or of Agathon's, whom Plato describes as effeminate,
but sweet and affecting, and who was a contemporary of Euripides, though
somewhat his junior.

Leaving to antiquarians to sift the stories about the waggon of the
strolling Thespis, the contests for the prize of a he-goat, from which the
name of tragedy is said to be derived, and the lees of wine with which the
first improvisatory actors smeared over their visages, from which rude
beginnings, it is pretended, Aeschylus, by one gigantic stride, gave to
tragedy that dignified form under which it appears in his works, we shall
proceed immediately to the consideration of the poets themselves.

The tragic style of Aeschylus (I use the word "style" in the sense it
receives in sculpture, and not in the exclusive signification of the
manner of writing,) is grand, severe, and not unfrequently hard: that of
Sophocles is marked by the most finished symmetry and harmonious
gracefulness: that of Euripides is soft and luxuriant; overflowing in his
easy copiousness, he often sacrifices the general effect to brilliant
passages. The analogies which the undisturbed development of the fine arts
among the Greeks everywhere furnishes, will enable us, throughout to