for their fecret influence on the mind, and

the terrors they could inflict on criminal confcience, when they were represented as obliged to have recourfe to the ordinary method of revenge, by being witnesses and pleaders in a court of juftice, to obtain the corporal punishment of the offender. Indeed, it is poffible, that the whole story of this play might be allegorical, as thus, that Oreftes, haunted by the terrors which pursue the guilty mind, confeffed his crime to the Areopagus, with all the aggravating circumstances remorfe fuggested to him, from a pious defire to expiate his offence, by fubmitting to whatever fentence this refpectable affembly should pronounce for that purpose. The oracle which commanded him to put Clytemnestra to death, would plead for him with his judges; their voices being equal for abfolving or punishing, wisdom gives her vote for abfolving him.

The fentiment that appears fo odd in the mouth of the goddess, from these confidera

tions, that she is little affected by the cir cumftance of Clytemnestra's relation to the murderer, because she herself had no mother, means only that justice is not governed by any affection or personal confideration, but acts by an invariable and general rule. If the ora cle commanded, and the laws juftified the act of Oreftes, by appointing the next in blood to avenge the murder, then other circumstances of a special and inferior kind, were not to have any weight. I am inclined to think this tragedy is a mixture of History and Allegory. Æfchylus affected the allegorical manner so much, as to form a tragedy, called the Balance, upon the allegory in Homer, of Jupiter's weighing the fates of Hector and Achilles *; and it is apparent, that the Prometheus of this author, is the ancient allegory of Prometheus wrought into a drama. Prometheus makes his first appearance with two fymbolical perfons, Violence and Force, which are, apparently, of the Poet's fiction. Pere Brumoy intimates a

Apud Plut. de modo leg, poëtas.

fufpicion that this tragedy is an allegory, but imagines it alludes to Xerxes or Darius, be cause it abounds with reflections on tyranny. To flatter the republican spirit, all the Grecian tragedies are full of such reflections. But an oblique cenfure on the Perfian monarch could not have excufed the direct imputations thrown on the character of Jupiter, if the circumftances of the story had been taken in a literal fenfe; nor can it be fuppofed that the Athenians would have endured the moft violent affronts to have been offered to the character of that deity to whom they every day offered facrifice. An allegory being fometimes a mere phyfical hypothefis, might without impiety be treated with freedom. It is probable that many allegories brought from the hieroglyphic land of Egypt, were, in the groffer times of Greece, literally understood by the vulgar; but, in more philosophic ages, were again tranfmuted into allegory; which will account for the mythology of the Greeks and Ægyptians varying greatly,

but

but still preserving fuch a refemblance as fhews them to be derived from the fame origin.

Jealous of the neighbouring states, and ever attentive to the glory and interest of their commonwealth, an Athenian audience listened with pleasure to any circumftances, in their theatrical entertainments, which reflected honour on their country. The inftitution of the Areopagus by the express commands of Minerva ; a perpetual amity, promised by Oreftes, between Argos and Athens, in the tragedy of the Eumenides, and a prophecy of Prometheus, which threw a luftre on the author of the race of the Heraclidæ, were circumftances, without queftion, fedulously fought by the Poet, and favorably received by the Spectator.: But though such subjects might be chofen, or invented, as would introduce fome favorable incidents, or flattering reflections, this intention did not always reign through the whole drama....

It

It was juft now obferved, that Shakespear has an advantage over the Greek Poets, in the more folemn, gloomy, and mysterious air of his national fuperftitions; but this avails him only with critics of deep penetration and true tafte, and with whom fentiment has more fway than authority. The learned have received the popular tales of Greece from their Poets; ours are derived to them from the illiterate vulgar. The phantom of Darius, in the tragedy of the Perfians, evoked by ancient rites, is beheld with reverence by the fcholar, and endured by the bel efprit. To thefe the ghost of Hamlet is an object of contempt or ridicule. Let us candidly examine thefe royal fhades, as exhibited to us by those great masters in the art of exciting pity and terror, Æfchylus and Shakespear; and impartially decide which Poet throws moft of the Sublime into the præternatural character; and, also, which has the art to render it most efficient in the drama. This enquiry may be the more interesting because the French wits have often mentioned