The contest between the rival dramatists takes place upon the stage, in full court, with Bacchus presiding, and the Chorus encouraging the competitors. It is extended to some length, but must have been full of interest to a play-loving audience, thoroughly familiar with the tragedies of both authors. Some of the points we can even now quite appreciate. Æschylus, in the hands of Aristophanes, does not spare his competitor. “A wretch that has corrupted everything-- Our music with his melodies from Crete, Our morals with incestuous tragedies. * * * * * I wish the place of trial had been elsewhere-- I stand at disadvantage here. _Bac._ As how? _Æs._ Because my poems live on earth above, And his died with him, and descended here, And are at hand as ready witnesses.”--(F.) Euripides retorts upon his rival the use of “breakneck words, which it is not easy to find the meaning of”--a charge which some modern schoolboys would be quite ready to support. The two poets proceed, at the request of the arbitrator, each to recite passages from their tragedies for the other to criticise: and if we suppose, as we have every right to do, that the voice and gestures of some well-known popular tragedian were cleverly mimicked at the same time, we should then have an entertainment of a very similar kind to that which Foote and Matthews, and in later days Robson, afforded to an English audience by their remarkable imitations. After various trials of skill, a huge pair of scales is produced, and the verses of each candidate are weighed, as a test of their comparative value. Still Bacchus cannot decide. At last he puts to each a political question--perhaps _the_ question of the day--which has formed the subject of pointed allusion more than once in the course of the play. Alcibiades, long the popular favourite, has recently been banished, and is now living privately in Thrace;--shall he be recalled? Both answer enigmatically; but the advice of the elder poet plainly tends to the policy of recall, which was no doubt the prevailing inclination of the Athenians. In vain does Euripides remind Bacchus that he had come there purposely to bring him back, and had pledged his word to do so. The god quotes against him a well-known verse from his own tragedy of ‘Hippolytus,’ with the sophistry of which his critics were never tired of taunting him-- It was my _tongue_ that swore. And Æschylus, crowned by his decision as the First of Tragedians, is led off in triumphal procession in the suite of the god of the drama, with Pluto’s hearty approbation. He leaves his chair in the Shades to Sophocles,--with strict injunctions to keep Euripides out of it.