If in so obvious a matter a profound mythologist like Welcker--(Tril., p. 104)--should have found in this language of deepest reverence signs of free-thinking and irony, we have only another instance of the tyrannous power of a favourite idea to draw facts from their natural cohesion, that they may circle round the nucleus of an artificial crystallization. Sewell has also taken up the same idea with regard to the scepticism of this passage; and in him, no less, must we attribute this notion to the influence of a general theory with regard to the religious opinions of Æschylus, rather than to any criticism which the present passage could possibly warrant. Note 19 (p. 47). "With all-defiant valour brimming o'er." A very literal rendering of the short, but significant, original παμμαχῳ θρὰσει βρύων, on which SYM. remarks that "it presents the magnificent and, to us, incongruous image of a giant all-steeled for battle, and bearing his boldness like a tree bearing its blossoms." But there is no reason that I know for confining βρύω here to its special use in Iliad XVII. 56 (Βρύει ἂυθ(ε)ι λευκῳ) and other such passages. It rather suggests generally, as SEW. says, "ideas of violence, exuberance, and uproar," like βρυάζων in Suppl. 856. He has accordingly given "With all-defying spirit, like a boiling torrent roaring," from which I have borrowed one word, with a slight alteration, but consider myself safer in not tying down the general word βρύων, to the special case of a _torrent_ any more than of a _tree_. The recent Germans--"_Im Gefühle stolzer Kraft_" (FR.), and "_allbewährteu Trotzes hehr_"--are miserably tame after Humboldt's admirable "_strotzend kampfbegierig frech._" As to the meaning of the passage, the three celestial dynasties of Uranus, Saturn, and Jove are plainly indicated, though who first threw this light on a passage certainly obscure, I cannot say. So far as I can see, it was SCHUTZ. The Scholiast (A in BUTLER) talks of the Titans and Typhon, which is, at all events, on the right scent. Neither ABRESCH nor STAN. seem to have understood the passage; and POTTER, disdaining to take a hint from the old Scholiast, generalises away about humanity. Note 20 (p. 48). "Our hearts with gracious force." The βιαίως certainly refers to the χάρις, and not to the ημένων, with the diluted sense of _pollenter_ given it by WELL.; and in this view I have no objection, with BLOMFIELD and CON., to read βίαιος. I am not, however, so sure as CON. that the common reading is wrong. βιαίως may be an abrupt imperfectly enunciated expression (and there are not a few such in Æschylus) for _exercising_ or _using compulsion_. Poets are not always the most accurate of grammarians. {340} Note 21 (p. 48). "In Aulis tides hoarse refluent."