260 SWINBURNE S TRAGEDIES. 



principle in the character of the people and the age which 

 produce them. One drop of ruddy human blood puts more 

 life into the veins of a poem than all the delusive aurum 

 potabile that can be distilled out of the choicest library. 



The opera is the closest approach we have to the ancient 

 drama in the essentials of structure and presentation ; and 

 could we have a libretto founded on a national legend and 

 written by one man of genius, to be filled out and accom 

 panied by the music of another, we might hope for some 

 thing of the same effect upon the stage. But themes of 

 universal familiarity and interest are rare &quot; Don 

 Giovanni &quot; and &quot; Faust,&quot; perhaps, most nearly, though not 

 entirely, fulfilling the required conditions and men of 

 genius rarer. The oratorio seeks to evade the difficulty 

 by choosing Scriptural subjects, and it may certainly be 

 questioned whether the day of popular mythology, in the 

 sense of which it subserves the purposes of epic or dramatic 

 poetry, be not gone by for ever. Longfellow is driven to 

 take refuge among the red men, and Tennyson in the 

 Cambro-Breton cyclus of Arthur ; but it is impossible that 

 such themes should come so intimately home to us as the 

 semi-fabulous stories of their own ancestors did to the 

 Greeks. The most successful attempt at reproducing the 

 Greek tragedy, both in theme and treatment, is the 

 &quot; Samson Agonistes,&quot; as it is also the most masterly piece 

 of English versification. Goethe admits that it alone, 

 among modern works, has caught life from the breath of 

 the antique spirit. But he failed to see, or at least to give, 

 the reason of it ; probably failed to see it, or he would 

 never have attempted the &quot; Iphigenia.&quot; Milton not only 

 subjected himself to the structural requirements of the 

 Attic tragedy, but with the true poetic instinct availed 

 himself of the striking advantage it had in the choice of a 

 subject. No popular tradition lay near enough to him for 

 his purpose ; none united in itself the essential requisites 

 of human interest and universal belief. He accordingly 

 chose a Jewish mythus, very near to his own heart as a 

 blind prisoner, betrayed by his wife, among the Philistines 



