I have been reading Euripides (in my way) but, as heretofore do not take greatly to him. He is always prosy, whereas (except in the matter of funeral Lamentations, Condolence, etc., which I suppose the Greek Audience expected--as I suppose they also expected the little sententious truism at the end of every Speech), except in these respects, Sophocles always goes ahead, and makes his Dialogue act in driving on the Play. He always makes the most of his Story too: Euripides not often. A remarkable instance of this is in his Heraclidae (one of the better Plays, I think), where Macaria is to be sacrificed for the common good: but one hears no more of her: and a fine opportunity is lost when Jocasta {87a} insults Eurystheus whom they have conquered, and is never told that that Conquest is at the cost of her Grand-daughter's Life--a piece of Irony which Sophocles would not have forgotten, I think. I have not yet read over Rhesus, Hippolytus, Medea, Ion, or the Iphigenias; altogether, the Phoenissae is the best of those I have read; the interview between Jocasta and her two sons, before the Battle, very good. There is really Humour and Comedy in the Servant's Account of Hercules' conviviality in Admetus' House of Mourning. I thought the story of the Bacchae poorly told: but some good descriptive passages. In the midst of Euripides, I was seized with a Passion to return to Sophocles, and read the two OEdipuses again. Oh, how immeasurably superior! In dramatic Construction, Dialogue, and all! How can they call Euripides [Greek text], {87b} putting a few passages of his against whole Dramas of the other, who also can show sentence for sentence more moving than any Euripides wrote. But I want to read these Plays once with some very accurate Guide, oral or printed. I mean Sophocles; I don't care to be accurate with the other. Can you recommend any Edition--not too German? I should write to Thompson about it; but I suppose he is busy with Marriage coming on. I mean, the present Master of Trinity, who is engaged to the widow of Dean Peacock; a very capital Lady to preside as Queen of Trinity Lodge. I have also been visiting dear old Virgil; his Georgics, and the 6th and 8th Books of the AEneid. I could now take them up and read them both again. Pray look at lines 407-415 of Book VIII--the poor Matron kindling her early fire--so Georgic! so Virgilian! so unsuited, or disproportionate, to the Thing it illustrates. Here is a long Letter--of the old Sort, I suppose. All these Books come back to me with Summer and the Sea: in another Month all will be gone together!--I look with Terror toward Winter, though I have not to encounter one, at any rate, of the three Giants which old Mrs. Bloomfield said were coming upon her--Winter, Want, and Sickness. {88} Pray remember me, in spite of all practical Forgetfulness, to Wife and Friends. Ever yours, E. F. G. _To F. Tennyson_. WOODBRIDGE: _Jan._ 29/67. MY DEAR FREDERIC,