We must never forget, that it is not _impar_ merely, but also _dispar_.
And such is its value in this light, that I protest five hundred kings'
ransoms, nay, any sum conceivable as a common contribution from all
nations would not be too much for the infinite treasure of the Greek
tragic drama alone. Is it superior to our own? No, nor (so far as
capable of collation) not by many degrees approaching to it. And were
the case, therefore, one merely of degrees, there would be no room for
the pleasure I express. But it shows us the ultimatum of the human mind
mutilated and castrated of its infinities, and (what is worse) of its
moral infinities.
You must imagine not only everything which there is dreadful in fact,
but everything which there is mysterious to the imagination in the
pariah condition, before you can approach the Heracleidæ. Yet, even with
this pariah, how poorly do most men conceive it as nothing more than a
civil, a police, an economic affair!
Valckenaer, an admirable Greek scholar, was not a man of fine
understanding; nor, to say the truth, was Porson. Indeed, it is
remarkable how mean, vulgar, and uncapacious has been the range of
intellect in many first-rate Grecians; though, on the other hand, the
reader would deeply deceive himself if he should imagine that Greek is
an attainment other than difficult, laborious, and requiring exemplary
talents. Greek taken singly is, to use an indispensable Latin word,
_instar_, the knowledge of all other languages. But men of the highest
talents have often beggarly understandings. Hence, in the case of
Valckenaer, we must derive the contradictions in his diatribe. He
practises this intolerable artifice; he calls himself [Greek:
philenripideios]; bespeaks an unfair confidence from the reader; he
takes credit for being once disposed to favour and indulge Euripides. In
this way he accredits to the careless reader all the false charges or
baseless concessions which he makes on any question between Euripides
and his rivals. Such men as Valckenaer it is who are biased and
inflected beforehand, without perceiving it, by all the commonplaces of
criticism. These, it is true, do not arise out of mere shadows. Usually
they have a foundation in some fact or modification. What they fail in
is, in the just interpretation of these truths, and in the reading of
their higher relations. 'The Correggiosity of Correggio' was precisely
meant for Valckenaer. The Sophocleity of Sophocles he is keen to
recognise, and the superiority of Sophocles as an artist is undeniable;
nor is it an advantage difficult to detect. On the other hand, to be
more Homeric than Homer is no praise for a tragic poet. It is far more
just, pertinent praise, it is a ground of far more interesting praise,
that Euripides is granted by his undervalues to be the most _tragic_
([Greek: tragichotatos]) of tragic poets. After that he can afford to
let Sophocles be '[Greek: Homerichôtos], who, after all, is not '[Greek:
Homerichôtutos], so long as Æschylus survives. But even so far we are
valuing Euripides as a poet. In another character, as a philosopher, as
a large capacious thinker, as a master of pensive and sorrow-tainted
wisdom, as a large reviewer of human life, he is as much beyond all
rivalship from his scenic brethren as he is below one of them as a
scenic artist.
Is the Nile ancient? So is Homer. Is the Nile remote and hiding its head
in fable? So is Homer. Is the Nile the diffusive benefactor of the
world? So is Homer.[36]
_The Æneid._--It is not any supposed excellence that has embalmed this
poem; but the enshrining of the differential Roman principle (the grand
aspiring character of resolution), all referred to the central principle
of the aggrandizement of Rome.
The sublime of wrath is nowhere exhibited so well as in Juvenal. Yet in
Juvenal pretty glimpses of rural rest--
'... infans cum collusore catello.'[37]
That is pretty! There is another which comes to my mind and suggests his
rising up and laying aside, etc., and shows it to be an _occasional_
act, and, _ergo_, his garden is but a relaxation, amusement.
Glances which the haughty eyes of Rome threw sometimes gently and
relentingly aside on man or woman, children or the flowers.
Herodotus is as sceptical as Plutarch is credulous. How often is _now_
and _at this time_ applied to the fictitious present of the author,
whilst a man arguing generally beforehand would say that surely a man
could always distinguish between _now_ and _then_.