for this purpose, a coryphæus, or leader, superintended and directed all the rest, spoke for the whole body in the dialogue part, and led the songs and dances in the intermede. By the introduction of a chorus, which bore a part in the action, the ancients avoided the absurdity of monologues and soliloquies; an error which the moderns have imperceptibly and necessarily fallen into from their omission of it: they avoided also that miserable resource of distressed poets, the insipid and uninteresting race of confidants (a refinement for which we are indebted to the French theatre), who only appear to ask a foolish question, listen to the secrets of their superiors, and laugh or cry as they are commanded. But the great use and advantage of the chorus will best appear when we come to consider it in its moral capacity. In that illustrious period which may be called the golden age of tragedy, the stage was not only the principal, but almost the only vehicle of instruction. Philosophy applied to the liberal arts for their influence and assistance; she appeared in the theatre even before she dictated in the academy; and Socrates is supposed to have delivered many of his excellent precepts by the mouth of his favourite* poet: this sufficiently accounts for the sententious and didactic part of the ancient drama, for all that profusion of moral and religious sentiments which tires the patience and disgusts the delicacy of modern readers the critics of those times were of opinion (however they may differ from our own in this particular) that the first and prin. cipal characters of the piece were too deeply interested in their own concerns, and too busy in the prosecution of their several designs and purposes, to be at leisure to make moral or political reflections: such, therefore, they very judiciously, for the most part, put into the mouth of the chorus; this, at the same time†, prevented the illite 66 * Hence Euripides was called ὁ ἐπὶ τῆς σκηνῆς φιλόσοφος, “ the philosopher of the theatre," "in iis," says Quintilian, " quæ a sapientibus tradita sunt, ipsis pæne par." With regard to Socrates, his friendship with this poet is universally known ; ἐδόκει συμποιεῖν Εὐpinion, says Diogenes Laertius. The comic poets of that time did not scruple to ascribe several of Euripides's plays to Socrates, as they afterwards did those of Terence to Lælius and Scipio. † Euripides being obliged to put some bold and impious sentiments into the mouth of a wicked character, the audience were angry with the poet, and looked on him as the real villain whom his actor represented: the story is told by Seneca. "Now if such an rate and undistinguishing part of the audience from mistaking the characters, or drawing hasty and false conclusions from the incidents and circumstances of the drama; the poet by these means leading them as it were insensibly into such sentiments and affections as he had intended to excite, and a conviction of those moral and religious truths which he meant to inculcate. But the chorus had likewise another office*, which was to relieve the spectator, during the pauses and intervals of the action, by an ode or song adapted to the occasion, naturally arising from the incidents †, and connected with the subject of the drama: here the author generally gave a loose to his imagination, displayed his poetical abilities, and sometimes, perhaps too often, wandered from the scene of action into the regions of fancy: the audience notwithstanding were pleased with this short relaxation and agreeable variety; soothed by the power of numbers, and the excellency of the composition, they easily forgave the writer, and returned as it were with double attention to his prosecution of the main subject: audience," says the ingenious writer, whom I quoted above, “could so easily misinterpret an attention to the truth of character into the real doctrine of the poet, and this too when a chorus was at hand to correct and disabuse their judgments, what must be the case when the whole is left to the sagacity and penetration of the people?" *The office of the chorus is divided by Aristotle into three parts, which he calls πάροδος, στάσιμον, and κομμοί : the parados is the first song of the chorus; the stasimon is all that which the chorus sings after it has taken possession of the stage and is incorporated into the action; and the commoi are those lamentations so frequent in the Greek writers, which the chorus and the actors made together. See the second scene of the second act of Ajax, in my translation; Philoctetes, act first, scene third; the beginning of the Edipus Coloneus, together with many other parts of Sophocles's tragedies, where the commoi are easily distinguishable from the regular songs of the chorus. t Neu quid medios intercinat actus Quod non proposito conducat et hæreat apte. This connexion with the subject of the drama, so essentially necessary to a good chorus, is not always to be found in the tragedies of Eschylus and Euripides, the latter of which is greatly blamed by Aristotle for his carelessness in this important particular; the correct to this part of the ancient chorus we are indebted for some of the noblest flights of poetry, as well as the finest sentiments that adorn the writings of the Greek tragedians. The number of persons composing the chorus was probably at first indeterminate, varying according to the circumstances and plot of the drama. Eschylus, we are told, brought no less than fifty into his Eumenides, but was obliged to reduce them to twelve*; Sophocles was afterwards permitted to add three; a limitation which we have reason to imagine became a rule to succeeding poets. When the chorus consisted of fifteen, the persons composing it ranged themselves in three rows of five each, or five rows of three, and in this order advanced or retreated from the right hand to the left, which is called strophe †, and then back from the left to the right, which we call antistrophe; after which they stood still in the midst of the stage, and sung the epode. Some writers attribute the original of these evolutions to a mysterious imitation of the motion of the heavens, stars, and planets; but the conjecture seems rather whimsical. The dance, we may imagine (if so we may venture to call it), was slow and solemn, or quick and lively, according to the words, sentiments, and occasion; and, in so spacious a theatre as that of Athens, might admit of such grace and variety in its motions as would render it extremely agreeable to the spectators: the petulancy of modern criticism has frequently made bold to ridicule the use of song and dance in ancient tragedy, not considering (as Brumoy observes) that dancing is, in reality, only a more graceful way of moving, and music but a more agreeable manner of expression; nor, indeed, can any good reason be assigned why they should not be admitted, if properly introduced and carefully managed, into the most serious compositions. The chorus continued on the stage during the whole representa *The number of the chorus in the Eumenides was only fifteen : see Müller on the origin of this error in his Dissertation prefixed to that play, p. 53. † It does not appear that the old tragedians confined themselves to any strict rules with regard to the division of strophe, antistrophe, and epode, as we find the choral songs consisting sometimes of a strophe only, sometimes of strophe and antistrophe, without the epode: the observing reader will find many other irregularities of this kind in a perusal of the Greek tragedies. tion of the piece, unless when some very extraordinary* circumstance required their absence: this obliged the poet to a continuity of action, as the chorus could not have any excuse for remaining on the spot when the affair which called them together was at an end : it preserved also the unity of time; for if the poet, as Hedelin † observes, had comprehended in his play a week, a month, or a year, how could the spectators be made to believe that the people, who were before them, could have passed so long a time without eating, drinking, or sleeping? Thus we find that the chorus preserved all the unities of action, time, and place; that it prepared the incidents, and inculcated the moral of the piece; relieved and amused the spectators, presided over and directed the music, made a part of the decoration, and, in short, pervaded and animated the whole; it rendered the poem more regular, more probable, more pathetic, more noble and magnificent; it was indeed the great chain which held together and strengthened the several parts of the drama, which without it could only have exhibited a lifeless and uninteresting scene of irregularity, darkness, and confusion. * As in the Ajax of Sophocles, where the chorus leave the stage in search of that hero, and by that means give him an opportunity of killing himself in the very spot which they had quitted, and which could not have been done with any propriety whilst they were present, and able to prevent it: on these occasions the chorus frequently divided itself into two parts, or semichoruses, and sang alternately. † See his "Whole Art of the Stage," page 129. of the English translation. VI. ARISTOPHANES ; HIS HISTORY, CHARACTER, AND WORKS. wwwww From "CUMBERLAND'S OBSERVER," No. 138. Ut templum Charites, quod non labatur, haberent, J. SCALIGER. THIS is a eulogy the more honorable to Aristophanes, as it fell from Plato, the disciple of Socrates. If I were to collect all the testimonies that are scattered through the works of the learned in behalf of the author we are now about to review, I should fill my pages with panegyric; but this I am the less concerned to do, as the reader has a part of him in possession, which, as it is near a fourth of the whole man, he has more than the foot by which to measure this Hercules. Both the parentage and birth-place of Aristophanes are doubtful he was an adopted, not a natural citizen of Athens, and I incline to think he was the son of Philippus, a native of Ægina, where our poet had some patrimony. He was in person very tall, bony, and robust; and we have his own authority for his baldness; but whether this was as disgraceful at Athens, as it was amongst the Romans, I have not been anxious to inquire. He was, in private life, of a free, open, and companionable temper; and his company was sought after by the greatest characters of the age, with all possible avidity: Plato, and even Socrates, shared many social hours with him he was much the most popular character in Athens, as the great demagogue Cleon experienced to his cost, not to mention Socrates himself: every honor that could be paid to a poet was publicly bestowed on Aristophanes by the Athenian people; nor did they confine their rewards to honorary prizes only, but decreed him fines and pecuniary confiscations from those who ventured to |