What an age was this, when the builders of the Parthenon and the authors of tragedy met and discussed the principles of their art! The lofty Pericles was there, the genial Herodotus, the brilliant Aristophanes, the homely Socrates, all contributing to form an atmosphere in which no poor or unreal art could last for a day. But artificial they all were, except Socrates; though the artifice was only the vehicle for great ideas, for the deepest nature, for the loftiest ideals. Hence the changes of custom, and even of traditions, have not marred the eternal greatness of Sophocles's tragedies. Sufferers such as Ajax, Philoctetes, Edipus, will ever command the deepest human pity; martyrs such as Antigone, the purest admiration. To paraphrase the words of Aristotle, Sophocles purifies the affections of pity and awe in the hearts of his audience by representing to them ideal men and women suffering huge misfortunes; broken it may be on the wheel of fortune, but not vanquished, because their heroic will is invincible.

This is the great moral lesson which the poet has taught the world; and it constitutes his first and greatest claim to rank among the stars of the first magnitude in the literature of nations. In theology he was a conservative; he did not venture, like Euripides, to quarrel with the current myths and to question the morality of the current creeds. But even as every sound modern moralist holds that in this world, the ideal of life and conduct is far higher than the average specimens we meet in ordinary society,- so Sophocles was convinced that there was a Divine morality, a Divine justice, far higher and purer than the lives and characters of the several gods as represented in Homer and the Epic Cycle. While therefore he does not alter the hard features of the Greek gods, or justify their jealousy and vindictiveness, he frequently asserts a very different and a far higher government of the world.

Such being the highest feature in the poet's philosophy, we may place next to it his admirable knowledge and portraiture of human character. The gallery of his heroes and heroines is like the gallery of a great painter's works, which gives us impressive and imperishable types. He takes but little care about his villains: his tyrants were not drawn from life, and his only erring queen - Clytemnestra -is not very interesting when we compare her to the Clytemnestra of Eschylus. But his heroines are as great as those of Euripides; his heroes are far greater; and his whole stage is more human than that of Eschylus.

Apart from the matter is the style; and in artistic work the style or form is of equal if not of greater importance. It is through style. that any writer or age of writers becomes a model, or an ideal, for succeeding generations to pursue. But as I am debarred in this

essay from quoting from the original, and am addressing a public not intimate with Greek, I am precluded from discussing this question with any further detail; and can only repeat my previous warning that Greek of the Attic age, used by its greatest masters, is a vehicle of expression so perfect both in its strength and its delicacy, that all versions in other tongues seem tame and bald to those who can read the poet's own words. It is this peerless perfection in Greek style, not only in the art of composition, but in the plastic arts, which has kept Greek studies alive as the very essence of any thorough modern culture. Nor is it likely that a time will ever come when future generations will have made such advances in art that the dipus of Sophocles, the Hermes of Praxiteles, the nameless tomb of the King of Sidon, the temples on the Acropolis at Athens, will be superseded by greater models.