In "Balaustion's Adventure" a historical tradition is used as the central episode of the poem, but life and romance are given to it by the creation of the heroine, Balaustion, a young Greek woman whose fascinating personality dominates the whole poem. She was a Rhodian, else her freedom of action and speech might seem too modern, but among the islands of Greece, at least at the time of Euripides, there still survived that attitude toward woman which we see reflected in the Homeric epics. Away from Athens, too, Euripides was a power; hence his defence is put into the mouth of one not an Athenian. She had saved a shipload of Athenian sympathizers by reciting Euripides when they were in danger from the hostile Syracusans. [Illustration: EURIPIDES] Besides the romantic touch which is given the story by the creation of the lyric girl, there is an especial fitness in making the enthusiastic devotee of this poet a woman, for no one among the ancients has so fully and sympathetically portrayed woman in all her human possibilities of goodness and badness as Euripides, yet he has been called a woman-hater--because some of his men have railed against women--but one Alkestis is enough to offset any dramatic utterances of his men about women. The poet's attitude should be looked for in his power of portraying women of fine traits, not in any opinions expressed by his men. Furthermore, Browning had before him a model of Balaustion in her enthusiasm for Euripides, in Mrs. Browning. These circumstances are certainly sufficient to prove the appropriateness of making a Rhodian girl the defender of Euripides. There is nothing more delicious in Browning than Balaustion's relation of "Alkestis," as she had seen it acted, to her three friends. Her woman's comment and criticisms combine a Browning's penetration of the fine points in the play with a girl's idealism. Such a combination of masculine intellectualism and feminine charm has been known in women of all centuries. As the translation of the beautiful play of "Alkestis" proceeds, Balaustion interprets its art and moral, defending her favorite poet, not with the ponderousness of a grave critic weighing the influences which may have molded his genius, or calculating the pros and cons of his style, but with the swift appreciation of a mind and spirit full of the ardor of sympathy. Moreover, her talk of the play being a recollection of how it appeared to her as she saw it acted, the mere text is constantly enlarged upon and made vital with flashing glimpses of the action, as, for example, in the passage just after the funeral of Alkestis: