frequently exhibited the most sublime specimens of lyric poetry, rivalling the loftiest strains of the Pindaric muse. Thus the audience, in a short piece, in which the plot was rapidly urged forward, and the interest was never allowed for a moment to flag, were presented alternately with the force of Demosthenes' declamation, the pathos of Sophocles' expressions, and the fire of Pindar's poetry. It was as if the finest scenes of Shakspeare's tragedies were thrown together with no other interjections but the eloquence of Burke in the dialogue, and lyric poetry on a level with Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," Gray's "Bard," or Campbell's "Last Man," in the chorus. Is it surprising that tragedies, exhibiting such a combination, worked out by the most perfect masters of the human heart, should have entranced every subsequent age? Though one scene only was presented in each tragedy on the Greek stage, so that unity of place was effectually observed, yet unity of _time_ was by no means so strictly attended to; so that the poet was far from being so fettered in this respect as is commonly imagined. Every scholar knows that a very considerable time, sometimes some hours, or half a day, were supposed to be consumed in the few minutes that the strophe and antistrophe of the chorus were in course of being chanted. For instance, in the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, during the time that one of the chorus is reciting a few verses, the heroic sister has found out the body of her beloved brother, and, in violation of the command of Creon, bestowed on it the rites of sepulture. In the _Hecuba_ of Euripides, in the brief space occupied by a chorus, her daughter Polyxine is led to the tomb of Achilles by Ulysses, and sacrificed there, in presence of the whole Greek army, to procure favourable gales for the return of the troops from Troy. In the _Electra_ of the same author, during the strophes of one chorus, Orestes and Electra effect the death of the husband of Clytemnestra; during another, murder their unhappy mother herself. In the _Phoenissae_ of Euripides, the duel between the two sons of Jocasta, their mutual slaughter, and the self-immolation of that fated mother on the body of her beloved son Polynices, take place while the chorus were reciting a few verses, and are described when the actors return on the stage. In truth, it is often in the tragic events which thus take place behind the scenes during the chorus, but in close connexion with what had just before been exhibited on the boards, that a material part of the interest of the piece consists, and the art of the poet is shown. The interest is never allowed for a moment to flag; it is wrought up first by the anticipation of the catastrophe, then by its description; and the intervening period, when it was actually going forward, is filled up by the recital of sublime lyric poetry, at once causing the stop of time to be forgotten, affording a brief respite to