third book of the Rhetoric followed, and that the physical works and the Metaphysics were later. See "Aristotle," by Sir Alexander Grant, in Blackwood's series, and the article "Aristotle" in the Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 Aristotle was born in B.C. 384, and died in 322. Sophocles and Euripides had died in 406, and there are no later dates of much importance to be noted in the history of Tragedy. Aristophanes, who had outlived the Old Comedy, died early in the fourth century; on the other hand, Menander, the great name of the New Comedy, was not born till 342. 4 See "Christianity and the Latin Races," a lecture by the late Dean of St. Paul's. 5 The translations are in the main adapted from that of Twining. 6 περὶ ποιητῶν α' β' γ, πραγματείαι τέχνης ποιητικῆς α'β', ἀπορήματα Ομηρικά σ', περὶ τραγωδιών α', διδασκαλίαι α'.-Diog. Laert. Bk. 5. 7 The Definition of Tragedy will be more fully understood if it is compared with other definitions drawn by Aristotle, such as those of evdauovía or ἀρετή in the Ethics, or this of πόλις, which is a KoLvwvía of a particular kind, existing for a particular purpose : ἡ δ ̓ ἐκ πλειόνων κωμῶν κοινωνία τέλειος πόλις ἤδη, πάσης ἔχουσα πέρας τῆς αὐταρκείας ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, γινομένη μὲν οὖν τοῦ ζῆν ἕνεκεν, οὖσα δὲ Tôi cử sô.—Politics, I, I (1252 b). It is also interesting to compare Dryden's definition of a play, which ought to be— “A just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind."—Essay of Dramatic Poesy. (This definition is put into the mouth of Lisideius (Sir Charles Sedley), but it was "well received" by the persons who are supposed to take part in the discussion, after some demur on the ground" that it was only a genere et fine," i.e. that it contained no differentia.) 8 See Horace, A. P. 113-127, 153-178, 309-322. 9 τῆς ὀρχήσεως δὲ ἄλλη μὲν Μουσῶν λέξιν μιμουμένων, τό τε μεγαλοπρεπές φυλάττοντες ἅμα καὶ ἐλεύθερον· ἄλλη δὲ εὐεξίας ἐλαφρότητός τε ἕνεκα καὶ κάλλους τῶν τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ μελῶν Kai μepov. Plato, Laws, 7, p. 795. οὕτως ἦν τεχνίτης (ὁ Τελέστης), ὥστε ἐν τῷ ὀρχεῖσθαι τοὺς Ἑπτὰ ἐπὶ Θήβας, φανερὰ ποιεῖσθαι τὰ πράγματα δι ̓ ὀρχήσεως.—Athenaeus, I, 39. "I can deeply sympathise in imagination with the Greeks in this favourite part of their theatrical exhibitions, when I call to mind the pleasure I felt in beholding the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii most exquisitely danced in Italy to the music of Cimarosa."— Coleridge, Lectures on Shakespeare, etc., 2, 13. 10 This practice of illustrating Poetry from Painting, and vice versa, is habitual in all lan guages. Its limitations are laid down in Lessing's Laocoön. The following passages illustrate the general tendency :-- πλὴν ὁ Σιμωνίδης τὴν μὲν ζωγραφίαν ποίησιν σιωπῶσαν προσαγορεύει, τὴν δὲ ποίησιν ζωγραφίαν Aaλovoav. Plutarch, De Gloria Atheniensium, c. 3. "Milton wrote in bronze. I am sure Virgil polished off his Georgics in marble-sweet calm shapes! exquisite harmonies of line! As for the Eneid, that, sir, I consider to be so many basreliefs, mural ornaments, which affect me not much.”—Thackeray, The Newcomes, c. 35. "I replied, "That he confounded the operations of the pencil and the pen: that the serene and silent art, as painting has been called by one of our first living poets, necessarily appealed to the eye, because it had not the organs for addressing the ear; whereas poetry, or that species of composition which approached to it, lay under the necessity of doing absolutely the reverse, and addressed itself to the ear, for the purpose of exciting that interest which it could not attain through the medium of the eye.’ "Dick was not a whit staggered by my argument, which he contended was founded on misrepresentation. 66 6 Description,' he said, 'was to the author of a romance exactly what drawing and tinting were to a painter, words were his colours, and, if properly employed, they could not fail to place the scene, which he wished to conjure up, as effectually before the mind's eye as the tablet or canvas presents it to the bodily organ.” ”—Scott, Introduction to the Bride of Lammermoor. 11 συμβέβηκε δὲ τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἐν μὲν τοῖς ἄλλοις μηθὲν ὑπάρχειν ὁμοίωμα τοῖς ἤθεσιν, οἷον ἐν τοῖς ἁπτοῖς καὶ τοῖς γευστοῖς, ἀλλ ̓ ἐν τοῖς ὁρατοῖς ἠρέμα· σχήματα γάρ ἐστι τοιαῦτα, ἀλλ' ἐπὶ μικρόν, καὶ πάντες τῆς τοιαύτης αἰσθήσεως κοινωνοῦσιν—ἔτι δὲ οὐκ ἔστι ταῦτα ὁμοιώματα τῶν ἠθῶν, ἀλλὰ σημεῖα μᾶλλον τὰ γιγνόμενα σχήματα καὶ χρώματα τῶν ἠθῶν . . . ἐν δὲ τοῖς μέλεσιν αὐτοῖς ἐστι μιμήματα τῶν ἠθῶν, καὶ τοῦτ ̓ ἐστὶ φανερόν· εὐθὺς γὰρ ἡ τῶν ἁρμονιῶν διέστηκε φύσις ὥστε ἀκούοντας ἄλλως διατίθεσθαι, κ.τ.λ.— Politics, 8, 5 (1340a33). 12 τοῖσιν δ ̓ ἐν μέσσοισι πάις φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ ἱμερόεν κιθάριζε, Λίνον δ ̓ ὑπὸ καλὸν ἄειδε λεπταλέῃ φωνῇ· τοὶ δὲ ῥήσσοντες ἁμαρτῇ μολπῇ τ ̓ ἰυγμῷ τε, ποσὶ σκαίροντες ἕποντο. Iliad, 18, 569-572. Compare Odyssey, 8, 256, etc. 13 τὸ μέλος ἐκ τριῶν ἐστὶ συγκείμενον, λόγου τε καὶ ἁρμονίας καὶ ῥυθμοῦ.—Republic, 3, p. 398. 14 This view as to the two physical causes is taken in the version of Avicenna : "Causae genetrices carminis in humano ingenio duae sunt. Altera delectatio imitationis et usus inde a pueris. . . . Altera causa natura insitus homini amor compositionis aequabilis et numerorum ; quum metra harmoniis natura propinqua essent, propensi in ea animi protulerunt."— "Poetica Avicennæ," c. 3 in Analecta Orientalia, edited by Professor Margoliouth, pp. 85, 86. It is also taken by Vahlen (Beiträge, p. 11). 15 πάντες ἄνθρωποι φύσει ὀρέγονται τοῦ εἰδέναι. -Opening words of the Metaphysics. 16 τὸ γὰρ μανθάνειν ῥᾳδίως ἡδὺ φύσει πᾶσιν ἐστι· τὰ δὲ ὀνόματα σημαίνει τι· ὥστε ὅσα τῶν ὀνομάτων ποιεῖ ἡμῖν μάθησιν ἥδιστα. . . . ἀναγκὴ δή, καὶ λέξιν καὶ ἐνθυμήματα ταῦτα εἶναι ἀστεία, ὅσα ποιεῖ ἡμῖν μάθησιν ταχείαν.—Rhet. 3, 1ο (1410 b. 10). 17 Shelley's Defence of Poetry was written in the year 1821, being an answer to Peacock's Four Ages of Poetry. It was not published till some years after the author's death 18 "But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude. He must divest himself of the prejudices of his age or country; he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state; he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will alway be the same; he must therefore content himself with the slow |