Again; the Chorus, which appears never to have been thoroughly understood by the moderns—the Chorus of Euripides is not, alas! the Chorus of his predecessors. That this singular, or at least apparently singular feature, in the Greek drama, was intended for the mere purpose of preventing the stage from being, at any moment entirely empty, has been an opinion very generally, and very unaccountably received. The Chorus was not, at any time, upon the stage. Its general station was in the orchestra, in which it also performed the solemn dances, and walked to and fro during the choral songs. And when it did not sing, its proper station was upon the thymele, an elevation somewhat like an altar, but with steps, in front of the orchestra, raised as high as the stage, and opposite to the scene—being also in the very centre of the entire theatre, and serving as a point around which the semi-circle of the amphitheatre was described. Most critics, however, have merely laughed at the Chorus as something superfluous and absurd, urging the folly of enacting passages supposed to be performed in secret in the presence of an assembled crowd, and believing that as it originated in the infancy of the art, it was continued merely through caprice or accident. Sophocles, however, wrote a treatise on the Chorus, and assigned his reasons for persisting in the practice. Aristotle says little about it, and that little affords no clew to its actual meaning or purpose. Horace considers it "a general expression of moral participation, instruction, and admonition;" and this opinion, which is evidently just, has been adopted and commented upon, at some length, by Schlegel. Publicity among the Greeks, with their republican habits and modes of thinking, was considered absolutely essential to all actions of dignity or importance. Their dramatic poetry imbibed the sentiment, and was thus made to display a spirit of conscious independence. The Chorus served to give verisimilitude to the dramatic action, and was, in a word, the ideal spectator. It stood in lieu of the national spirit, and represented the general participation of the human race, in the events going forward upon the stage. This was its most extended, and most proper object; but it had others of a less elevated nature, and more nearly in accordance with the spirit of our own melo-drama.
But the Chorus of Euripides was not the true and unadulterated Chorus of the purer Greek tragedy. It is even more than probable that he did never rightly appreciate its full excellence and power, or give it any portion of his serious attention. He made no scruple of admitting the parabasis into his tragedies1—a license which although well suited to the spirit of comedy, was entirely out of place, and must have had a ludicrous effect in a serious drama. In some instances also, among which we may mention the Danaidæ, a female Chorus is permitted by him to make use of grammatical inflexions proper only for males.
1 The parabasis was the privilege granted the Chorus of addressing the spectators in its own person.
In respect to the Ideality of the Greek drama, a few words will be sufficient. It was the Ideality of conception, and the Ideality of representation. Character and manners were never the character and manners of every day existence, but a certain, and very marked elevation above them. Dignity and grandeur enveloped each personage of the stage—but such dignity as comported with his particular station, and such grandeur as was never at outrance with his allotted part. And this was the Ideality of conception. The cothurnus, the mask, the mass of drapery, all so constructed and arranged as to give an increase of bodily size, the scenic illusions of a nature very different, and much more extensive than our own, inasmuch as actual realities were called in to the aid of art, were on the other hand the Ideality of representation. But although in Sophocles, and more especially in Æschylus, character and expression were made subservient and secondary to this ideal and lofty elevation—in Euripides the reverse is always found to be the case. His heroes are introduced familiarly to the spectators, and so far from raising his men to the elevation of Divinities, his Divinities are very generally lowered to the most degrading and filthy common-places of an earthly existence. But we may sum up our opinion of Euripides far better in the words of Augustus William Schlegel, than in any farther observations of our own.
"This poet has at the same time destroyed the internal essence of tragedy, and sinned against the laws of beauty and proportion in its external structure. He generally sacrifices the whole to the effect of particular parts, and in these he is also more ambitious of foreign attractions, than of genuine poetical beauty."
The Early Naval History of England. By Robert Southey, L.L.D. Poet Laureate. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. The early naval history of England, and by so fine a writer as Southey undoubtedly is, either in poetry or prose, but more especially in the latter, cannot fail of exciting a lively interest among readers of every class. In the subject matter of this work we, as Americans, have moreover a particular feeling, for it has been often remarked that in no national characteristic do we bear a closer analogy to our progenitors in Great Britain than in the magnificence and glory of our many triumphs both over and upon the sea. To those who know Southey well, and we sincerely hope there are not a few of our readers who do know him intimately, through the medium of his writings at least, we shall be under no necessity of giving any assurance that the History of which we are now speaking, is a work of no common merit, and worthy of all their attention. Southey is a writer who has few equals any where, either in purity of truly English prose, or in melody of immortal verse. He is great in every department of Literature which he has attempted. And even did we feel inclined at present, with his very happily executed Naval History before us, to quarrel with some of his too zealous friends for overrating his merely poetical abilities, we could not find it in our hearts to place him second to any one—no, not to our own noble Irving in—we will not use the term classical, but prefer repeating our former expression—in truly English, undefiled, vigorous, and masculine prose. Yet this the North American Review has ventured to do, not having, we think, before its eyes the fear of flat and positive contradiction from all authorities whose opinions are entitled to consideration. Comparisons of this nature, moreover, rarely fail of appearing, even although they really be not, invidious; and in the present instance we are really aware of no reason, or rather of no possibility for juxta-position. There are no points of approximation between Irving and Southey, and they cannot be compared. Why not say at once, for it could be said as wisely, and as satisfactorily, that Dante's verse is superior to that of Metastasio—that the Latin of Erasmus is better than the Latin of Buchanan—that Bolingbroke is a finer prose writer than Horne Tooke, or coming home to our own times, that Tom Moore is to be preferred to Lord Brougham, and the style of N. P. Willis to the style of John Neal? We mean to deal, therefore, in generalities, when we disagree with Mr. Everett in what he has advanced. Irving is not a better prose writer than Southey. We know of no one who is. In saying thus much we do not fear being accused of a deficiency in patriotic feeling. No true—we mean no sensible American will like a bad book the better for being American, and on the other hand no sensible man of any country, who pretends to even common freedom from prejudice, will esteem such a work as the Naval History of Great Britain the less for being written by a denizen of any region under the sun.
The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1836. Edited by Miss Leslie. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart—We are really sorry that we have no opportunity of noticing this beautiful little Annual at length, and article by article, in our present number: and this the more especially as the edition is even now nearly exhausted, and it will be hardly worth while to say any thing concerning the work in our next, by which time we are very sure there will not be a copy to be obtained at any price. The Gift is highly creditable to the enterprise of its publishers, and more so to the taste and talents of Miss Leslie. This we say positively—the ill-mannered and worse-natured opinion of the Boston Courier to the contrary notwithstanding. Never had Annual a brighter galaxy of illustrious literary names in its table of contents—and in no instance has any contributor fallen below his or her general reputation. The embellishments are not all of a high order of excellence. The Orphans, for example, engraved by Thomas B. Welch from a painting by J. Wood, is hard and scratchy in manner, and altogether unworthy of the book—while the head of the child in the Prawn Fishers, engraved by A. W. Graham from a painting by W. Collins, R.A. has every appearance of a cabbage. But the portrait of Fanny Kemble by Cheney, from Sully, is one of the finest things in the world, notwithstanding a certain wiriness above the hair. The likeness is admirable—the attitude exquisite—and the countenance is beaming all over with intelligence. The gem of the book, however, is the Smuggler's Repose, engraved by W. E. Tucker from a painting by J. Tennant. We repeat it, this is absolutely a gem—such as any Souvenir in any country might be proud to possess, and sufficient of itself to stamp a high character upon the Gift.