The mere English reader will have a fair conception of this singular ingredient of the ancient drama, by perusing Milton's tragedy above-named, which is cast in the most rigorous Attic mould; and which, we are tempted to imagine would have been received even at Athens, if it could have been brought out in the astonishing Greek version of Glasse. If Gray had not dissipated his matchless powers upon mere fugitive efforts, he might have done more than all other scholars to produce a spirited repristination of the antique chorus. Mason's _Elfrida_ on the same plan has been thought a failure. His estimate of the ancient chorus however merits attention. “Shakspeare” says he, speaking of the _poetic_ element in the drama, “had the power of introducing this naturally, and what is most strange, of joining it with pure passion; but I make no doubt, if we had a tragedy of his formed on the Greek model, we should find in it more frequent, if not nobler, instances of his high poetical capacity. I think you have a proof of this in those parts of his historical plays, which are called choruses, and written in the common dialogue metre. And your imagination will easily conceive, how fine an ode the description of the night preceding the battle of Agincourt would have made in his hands, and what additional grace it would receive from that form of composition.” He also shows that the chorus augmented the pathetic, both in its odes and dialogue; by music, by the dance, by aiding and carrying forward the impression, and by showing to the spectators other spectators strongly affected by the action. These remarks are cited merely to throw light on this cardinal attribute of the ancient drama, not to recommend its revival among the moderns. The German scholar will find the “Iphigenia in Tauris” perhaps the severest and happiest imitation of the antique; yet it does not “come home to our business and bosoms.”