could be: a few surplices borrowed from Episcopal chapels, or rather the ornamented _albes_, &c. from any rich Roman Catholic establishment, would have been more effective. The _Coryphaeus_ himself seemed, to my eyes, no better than a railway laborer, fresh from tunnelling or boring, and wearing a _blouse_ to hide his working dress. These ill- used men ought to 'strike' for better clothes, in case Antigone should again revisit the glimpses of an Edinburgh moon; and at the same time they might mutter a hint about the ale. But the great hindrances to a perfect restoration of a Greek tragedy, lie in peculiarities of our theatres that cannot be removed, because bound up with their purposes. I suppose that Salisbury Plain would seem too vast a theatre: but at least a cathedral would be required in dimensions, York Minster or Cologne. Lamp-light gives to us some advantages which the ancients had not. But much art would be required to train and organize the lights and the masses of superincumbent gloom, that should be such as to allow no calculation of the dimensions overhead. Aboriginal night should brood over the scene, and the sweeping movements of the scenic groups: bodily expression should be given to the obscure feeling of that dark power which moved in ancient tragedy: and we should be made to know why it is that, with the one exception of the _Persae_, founded on the second Persian invasion, [11] in which Aeschylus, the author, was personally a combatant, and therefore a _contemporary_, not one of the thirty-four Greek tragedies surviving, but recedes into the dusky shades of the heroic, or even fabulous times. A failure, therefore, I think the 'Antigone,' in relation to an object that for us is unattainable; but a failure worth more than many ordinary successes. We are all deeply indebted to Mr. Murray's liberality, in two senses; to his liberal interest in the noblest section of ancient literature, and to his liberal disregard of expense. To have seen a Grecian play is a great remembrance. To have seen Miss Helen Faucit's Antigone, were _that_ all, with her bust, [Greek: _os agalmatos_] [12] and her uplifted arm 'pleading against unjust tribunals,' is worth--what is it worth? Worth the money? How mean a thought! To see _Helen_, to see Helen of Greece, was the chief prayer of Marlow's Dr. Faustus; the chief gift which he exacted from the fiend. To see Helen of Greece? Dr. Faustus, we _have_ seen her: Mr. Murray is the Mephistopheles that showed her to us. It was cheap at the price of a journey to Siberia, and is the next best thing to having seen Waterloo at sunset on the 18th of June, 1815. [13] FOOTNOTES [1] '_When sown_;' as it has been repeatedly; a fact which some readers may not be aware of. [2] Boileau, it is true, translated Longinus. But there goes little Greek to _that_. It is in dealing with Attic Greek, and Attic _poets_, that a man can manifest his Grecian skill. [3] 'Before God was known;'--i.e. known in Greece.