The same is true about the speeches of the Messenger. The art of Æschylus was far too highly organized to be obliged to have recourse to such rude methods. It is true that, when he pleased, as in the _Persæ_, he gave the principal part to the Messenger. The actors in that play are little better than spectators; and the same may be said about the _Seven against Thebes_. But the Messenger, though employed as here for special purposes, was no integral part of his dramatic machinery; nor did he ever commit the decisive event of the drama to narration. His master-stroke as a dramatic poet--the cry of Agamemnon, following close upon the prophecies of Cassandra, and breaking the silence like a clap of doom, in that awful moment when the scene is left empty and the chorus tremble with the apprehension of a coming woe--would probably have yielded in the hands of Euripides to the speech of a servant. It was not that the later poet would not willingly have employed every means in his power for stirring the emotions of his audience; but he had not the creative imagination of his predecessor; he could not grasp his subject as a whole so perfectly as to dispense with artificial and mechanical devices. He fell back, therefore, upon narrative, in which he was a supreme master. Equally remarkable from this point of view is the Æschylean treatment of the Chorus. It is never really separated from the action of the play. In the _Prometheus_, for example, the Oceanidæ actually share the doom of the protagonist. In the _Supplices_ the daughters of Danaus may be termed the protagonist; for upon them converges the whole interest of the drama. In the _Seven against Thebes_ the participation of the Chorus in the fate of the chief actors is proved by half of them siding with Ismene and the other half with Antigone at the conclusion. In the _Persæ_ they represent the nation which has suffered through the folly of Xerxes. In the _Agamemnon_ the elders of Mycenæ assume an attitude directly hostile to Ægisthus and Clytemnestra. In the _Choëphoroe_ the women who sympathize with Electra further the scheme of Orestes by putting Ægisthus off the track of danger and sending him unarmed to meet his murderers. In the _Eumenides_ the Furies play a part at least equal in importance to that of Orestes. They, like the protagonist, stand before the judgment-seat of Pallas and accept the verdict of the Areiopagus. Thus, in each of the extant plays of Æschylus, even the Chorus, which was subsequently so far separated from the action as to become a mere commentator and spectator, is vitally important in the conduct of the drama. Euripides, by formalizing the several elements of the tragic art, by detaching the Chorus, introducing a prologue, and expanding the functions of the Messenger, sacrificed that higher kind of unity which we admire in the harmonious working of complex parts. What he gained was the opportunity of concentrating attention upon