. . . I do not know that I praised Xenophon's imagination in recording
such things as Alcibiades at Lampsacus; {240} all I meant to say was that
the history was not dull which does record such facts, if it be for the
imagination of others to quicken them. . . . As to Sophocles, I will not
give up my old Titan. Is there not an infusion of Xenophon in Sophocles,
as compared to AEschylus,--a dilution? Sophocles is doubtless the better
artist, the more complete; but are we to expect anything but glimpses and
ruins of the divinest? Sophocles is a pure Greek temple; but AEschylus
is a rugged mountain, lashed by seas, and riven by thunderbolts: and
which is the most wonderful, and appalling? Or if one will have AEschylus
too a work of man, I say he is like a Gothic Cathedral, which the Germans
say did arise from the genius of man aspiring up to the immeasurable, and
reaching after the infinite in complexity and gloom, according as
Christianity elevated and widened men's minds. A dozen lines of AEschylus
have a more Almighty power on me than all Sophocles' plays; though I
would perhaps rather save Sophocles, as the consummation of Greek art,
than AEschylus' twelve lines, if it came to a choice which must be lost.
Besides these AEschyluses _trouble_ us with their grandeur and gloom; but
Sophocles is always soothing, complete, and satisfactory.
_To W. B. Donne_.