SEPT. 18.-A morceau from ß. I hope my readers will not judge too harshly of the somewhat discordant rhyme of "resemblances" and "eyes;" at all events, if in one part it has not got rhyme, it has everywhere else-aye, and reason too. What is Love? A jealous flame, Piercing through every mortal frame; It burns by day and burns by night, Tender, chaste, till death enduring,- SEPT. 20.-The best comes last; and I'll wager that I and my readers shall not quarrel over the following piece. O were I a cross on thy snowy breast, Or were I a gem in thy raven hair; O were I the soft-blowing wind of the west, O were I a bracelet upon thy arm, Or a ring on thy taper hand to shine, And grow bright in thy brightness, Caroline. In vain! I may never see thee more, Save thro' the dark glass of memory; Yet my vows for thy welfare I still must pour, Fair offspring to stay thee when thou art old, And a happy lot in life be thine; And a grave with thy sires in the churchyard mould, Finally, as no collection of pieces is complete without a sonnet, we here present the connoisseurs in that line with the following effusion, by a foreign correspondent. And must I keep my promise? Must I write A sonnet? But there never was a man One quatrain's fairly done-'twill rhyme and scan— Two triplets. Are they hard? I fear they are— To think of that. Would it were finished too! ETON SCHOOL MAGAZINE. No. IV. ON THE ORESTEIA OF ÆSCHYLUS. φώτος ἀμυνομένου φρενοτέκτονος ἀνδρὸς ῥήμαθ ̓ ἱπποβάμονα.—ARIST. RANE Of all the mythological fables of early Greece, which have been preserved to us either by the notices of them contained in the Homeric poems, or by the vehicle of tradition during the darker ages of history, and the subsequent incorporation of them in the genealogical works of such men as Apollodorus, few have attained such universal celebrity as the legend of the house of Pelops. The cause of this celebrity it is not difficult to discover, its connection with the Trojan war ensured it a notice in the writings of Homer, which to a certain degree must have immortalized it, and rendered it matter for popular belief. In the hands of Eschylus it assumed a new aspect; in the fable of the house of Atréus, he saw an exemplification of the dogma which always seems to have been uppermost in his mind-the power of Destiny; and accordingly, in the transmission of the story from the legendary to the dramatic form, we find this idea forming a prominent feature in the groundwork of the Oresteia. These three plays are not only interesting to us L through the merits of the poetry or design alone, great as these are; but through their exhibiting the only complete specimen of a trilogy, which has descended to our times. And it is impossible fairly to estimate the power of Eschylus as a dramatist or poet, unless the whole scope and bearing of these three pieces be distinctly conceived and understood. Each play may be read separately, no matter which first, and each will leave a high impression of the power of its author on the mind of any one who is prepared to recall the days of Marathon, and to invest himself with Athenian sentiments and prejudices: but it is not till the Oresteia is read and considered as a whole, that the consummate power of the author is shewn; and the plays no longer seem like individual creations, but merge in the harmony of one grand whole. Yet it is also necessary, in addition to this, that each piece be considered separately in reference to the elucidation of the grand fundamental idea; and we intend, however humbly, in the following pages, to lay before our readers a slight outline of the three dramas, chiefly with reference to this point. The family of Tantalus was remarkable for the succession of crimes and retributions carried on by its members, for successive generations. At the period at which the Agamemnon opens, Agamemnon, the greatgrandson of Tantalus, is absent at the siege of Troy, which is now verging to the close of its predicted duration; Hector and Achilles are dead; the Grecian army have retired to Tenedos, and are awaiting the result of Minerva's artifice; while Clytemnestra, at Argos, is anxiously expecting the beacon lights which are to give her timely notice of the capture of the doomed city. The curtain drops, and the guard whose office it is to look out for the rλéñoμñov páos of Troy, prays the Gods to release him from his long nightly service, by sending the wished-for fire. It suddenly appears; he departs to communicate the joyful intelligence to his mistress; and a chorus of old men enter and sing the expedition of the two Atride to Troy, and thence pass into a magnificent description of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. In this chorus we obtain the first intimation of the arn hanging over the house of Agamemnon; the sacrifice of Iphigenia was yet unexpiated, which again was in itself only a partial fulfilment of the curse entailed on the whole race by the impiety of Atreus to Thyestes. The chorus are now acquainted with the propitious end of the war, by Clytemnestra; and after another superb chorus,* a herald enters, and *Though we are not here concerned with Eschylus' character as a poet, yet we may be allowed a few words on a passage in this chorus, of singular beauty, which labours under a great corruption of text, we mean the verses 403, 4: Πάρεστι σιγᾶς ἄτιμος ἀλοίδορος ἅδιστος ἀφεμεναν ἰδεῖν. This was the old reading, where ayaç is unintelligible: Hermann calls it Doric for oynes, but produces no analogous instance of such a contraction. Scholefield's reading is far preferable :- πάρεστι σίγ ̓ ἀτιμος ἀλλ ̓ ἀλοίδορος ἄπιστος ἀφεμέναν ἰδεῖν. Where, however, äπioтоç idεiv seems awkward. His emendation of σιγ ̓ ἄτιμος may be supported by Choeph. 90 :- ἢ σῖγ ̓ ἀτίμως, ὥσπερ οὖν, &c. A certain fair critic, in the new edition of S. T. Coleridge's Biogra |