[From the same]
The classical reader remembers that, when almost all the Greeks,
captured with Nicias at Syracuse, had died in dungeons, a remnant of the
survivors saved themselves by the recitation of beautiful extracts from
Euripides. How potent was the shadowed genius of the immortal Athenian,
when it alone melted the icy hearts that nothing else could touch, and
broke the captive's chains, which justice, and prayers, and tears, had
in vain tried to unloose! And hence "the glory of Euripides had all
Greece for a monument." He too was elevated by the light of other minds.
It is said that he acquired a sublime inspiration whenever he read
Homer--whose Iliad and whose Odyssey--the one exhibiting the fatality of
strife among leading men, the other portraying the efficacy of
perseverance--have stamped his name on the roll of fame in letters of
sunshine, that will never fade away. No memorial tells where Troy once
stood--Delphi is now mute--the thunder of Olympus is hushed, and
Apollo's lyre no longer echoes along the banks of the Peneus--but the
fame of Homer still travels with the stars.