763 
POE 
So give ferious credit to any part of it. But man is himfelf 
made up of inconliftencies; and with certain qualifications, 
and, on the part of intelligent and reflefting perfons, 
large exceptions and allowances, it is fufficiently evident 
that the mythological fyftem was embraced by the nations 
of antiquity as efientially and radically true. 
3. “ Medea” affords a grand and driking fubjeft for 
imperial tragedy. Medea is a woman of the higheft rank, 
of great accomplifhments, of commanding talents, and 
of violent paflions. She is moreover poffefi’ed of magical 
fecrets and fupernatural powers. This extraordinary 
perfonage, having conceived a romantic and unbounded 
attachment to an unprincipled adventurer, abandons the 
palace of her father, and Colchis her native country, to 
accompany her lover Jafon on his return to Greece, 
After an interval of no long duration, (lie finds the affec¬ 
tions of her hufband wholly edranged ; and is apprifed 
that he has adopted the refolution of divorcing, and fend¬ 
ing into exile, her who had for his fake made fuch facri- 
fices, in order to unite himfelf to the daughter of Creon 
king of Corinth, which city had afforded them a fafe and 
hofpitable afylum. At this intelligence {he is thrown 
into tranfports ofrage, terminating in fchemes of the direft 
and moll defperate revenge. Thefe epiotions are blended 
with occafional difplays of the molt exquifite fenfibility, 
though wholly unreftrained by the operation of any vir¬ 
tuous principle. And the entire charafter of Medea, as 
reprefented by Euripides, is tremendoudy awful; and, 
what is extremely rare, either in fiftion or real life, our 
fixed and unequivocal abhorrence is mingled with fenti- 
ments of the deeped compaffion. Her courage and con¬ 
fidence in her own refources compel our admiration ; 
and our fcorn is referved for the l'elfifh, the bafe, and 
perfidious, Jafon ; the prototype of ten thoufand lovers 
of the fame villainous damp, who make it their practice 
firft to deceive, and then perhaps their boaft to betray. 
To the circumftances of horror interwoven with the ca- 
taftrophe of this drama, we are in fome degree reconciled 
by the notoriety of the fable, which was beyond the com¬ 
petence of the poet to alter or modify. The dreadful 
triumph of Medea over Jafon at their final meeting, after 
having perpetrated the murder of his intended bride and 
her own children, is conceived with a fublimity which 
agitates every faculty of the foul ; and, if it were pofiible 
to fympathize in the forrows of fuch a man, would make 
even Jafon an objeft of pity. 
4. The “ PhoenifTse.” This appellation is derived from 
the Chorus, confiding of Phoenician damfels, bearing to 
the temple of Delphi a votive offering. The tragedy 
commences with a tedious foliloquy, by Jocada, the 
fpoufe of Laius, and wretched mother-wife of CEdipus, 
containing a narration of the misfortunes of the houfe of 
Cadmus. But even this Ample mode of development is 
perhaps preferable to a fcene of equal length between a 
princefs and her confidante. The fable of this tragedy 
is fimilar to that of The Seven Chiefs, by FEfchylus; but 
the Phceniflse is, beyond queftion, the fuperior production. 
The Siege of Thebes, in the view of antiquity, was an 
event of great importance; and, in this truly dramatic 
reprefentation of it, all is animation, rage, and tumult. 
The violent and unprincipled ambition of Eteocles is 
well contraded by the comparative moderation and equity 
of Polynices, wdiofe refolution to enforce his rights, by 
an appeal to arms, feems, according to modern ethics, 
fcarcely liable to cenfure. But the ancients thought 
differently, and with far more ardent emotions of patriot¬ 
ism, on the {ubjeft. And the fentence of Creon, after 
the mutual daughter of the rival brothers, is analogous 
to that pronounced by him in the drama of iEfchylus : 
Of the deceafed, the one into the palace 
Mud be conveyed ; but, as for him who came 
With foreign troops to lay his country wade, 
The corfe of Polynices, cad it forth 
Unburied ; from theconfines of this land, 
A prey to vultures. 
TRY. 
Plad Polynices been merely the afiaffinator of Eteocles, or 
had he circumvented him by an aft of treachery, he would 
have dood excufed, not to fay judified, in the view of 
the moralids of antiquity. But to involve the land which 
gave him birth in mifery and ruin, for the purpofe of 
revenging his own individual wrongs, was regarded as 
the greated of crimes; and his name and memory, not- 
withdanding the abdraft judice of his claims, was held 
accurfed throughout the Grecian commonwealths. Such 
is the difference in the theories of ages and nations 
remote from each other, and equally bonding their refine¬ 
ment and civilization : and fo little foundation is there 
for the hypothefis of innate principles of virtue. 
The grief, the terror, and the maternal affeftion, of 
Jocada, who, in her paroxyfm of defpair, exclaims that 
“ horrors revel in the houfe of CEdipus,” are painted with 
the hand of a mader ; and her end is truly tragic. The 
veneration expreffed by Creon for the feer Tirefias, his 
devout fubmiffion to the will of the gods previous to its 
announcement, though warned by the prophet that 
Thebes cannot be faved without a great facrifice on his 
part, and his fudden and total change of difpofition on 
being informed that the death of his fon is the facrifice 
required, with hi's confequent readinefs to abandon the 
city to its fate, are all circumdances conformable to the 
nature of man as he exided two thoufand years ago, and 
as he ltill exilts. The magnanimity of the youthful Me- 
nasceus, however rare, exceeds not the limits of credibi¬ 
lity; and the addrefs of the poet is difcernible in the 
generous fentiments occafionally falling from the lips of 
Polynices, and tending to alleviate the odium, and even 
horror, excited in the breads of an Athenian audience, 
by the nefarious aft of waging war againd his country. 
In his dying moments,beholding his-brother alfo expiring, 
he pathetically exclaims to Jocada, danding in fpeechlefs 
agony near them : 
O mother, w'e are lod, I pity thee 
And my dain brother; for, although that friend 
Became a foe, this heart dill holds him dear. 
--Of my paternal foil 
Enough for a poor grave may I obtain, 
Though I have lod the empire. 
5. The “ Suppliants.” Of all the plays of Euripides, 
there is not one of which the fubjeft feems lefs important 
or attraftive than the prefent; yet the art and genius of 
the poet are confpicuous in the conduft of it. Subfe- 
quent to the unfuccefsful attack of Adradus, fovereign 
of Argos, accompanied by Polynices and the feven chiefs, 
againd Thebes, Creon, the fuccedor of Eteocles, made a 
barbarous life of his viftory, in refufing to the dain 
Argives the rites of burial. In confequence of this 
outrage, fo dreadful in the view of the ancients, Adradus, 
unable to renew the war, appears as a fuppliant, followed 
by a train of noble Argive matrons, at the court of The- 
feus, “ head of the Athenian date,” to implore the aid 
of that hero, for the purpofe of retelling thefe hapJ.efs 
viftims from their unmerited doom. This gives occafion 
to fome beautiful fcenes. The charafter of Thefeus is 
happily fudained as “ the mod beloved and mod renowned 
of Grecian chiefs.” He at firlt feverely cenfures Adradus, 
in taking upon him to be the avenger of the wrongs of 
Polynices, and caufing his country’s ruin, by following 
the pernicious couniels of thofe who place their foie 
delight in glory : 
-That god, whoe’er he was, 
I praife, who fevered mortals from a life 
Of wild confufion, and of brutal force ; 
Shall I then be thy champion ? What pretence 
That would found honourably could I allege 
To gain my countrymen ? Depart in peace ; 
For baleful are the counfels thou had given 5 
Nor mud we urge profperity too far. 
Deprefied, but not degraded, by his misfortunes, Adradus 
acknowledges liis error; but, for the lake of his fuffering 
fubjeft s s 
