BACCHUS [TO Eschylus].

Have done there!

EURIPIDES.

His words were never clear or plain.

BACCHUS [TO Eschylus].

Don't grind your teeth so strangely.

EURIPIDES.

But Bulwarks and Scamanders, and Hippogrifs, and Gorgons, "Embost on brazen bucklers" and grim remorseless phrases Which nobody could understand.

BACCHUS.

Well, I confess for my part,

I used to keep awake at night, conjecturing and guessing
To think what kind of foreign bird he meant by griffin-horses.

ESCHYLUS.

A figure on the heads of ships; you goose, you must have seen them.

BACCHUS.

I took it for Philoxenus, for my part, from the likeness.

EURIPIDES.

So! figures from the heads of ships are fit for tragic diction.

ESCHYLUS.

Well then, thou paltry wretch, explain-What were thy own devices?

EURIPIDES.

Not stories about flying stags, like yours, and griffin-horses;

Nor terms nor images derived from tapestry Persian hangings. When I received the Muse from you, I found her puffed and pampered.

With pompous sentences and terms, a cumbrous huge virago.
My first attention was applied to make her look genteelly,
And bring her to a moderate bulk by dint of lighter diet.

I fed her with plain household phrase and cool familiar salad,
With water-gruel episode, with sentimental jelly,

With moral mince-meat; till at length I brought her within compass :
Cephisophon, who was my cook, contrived to make them relish
I kept my plots distinct and clear; and to prevent confusion
My leading characters rehearsed their pedigrees for prologues.

ESCHYLUS.

'Twas well at least that you forbore to quote your own extraction. (This is a most characteristic bit of Athenian malice, Euripides was illegitimate.)

EURIPIDES.

From the first opening of the scene, all persons were in action:
The master spoke, the slave replied;-the women, old and young
All had their equal share of talk.
[ones,

ÆSCHYLUS.

Come then, stand forth and tell us

What forfeit less than death is due for such an innovation?

EURIPIDES.

I did it upon principle, from democratic motives.

BACCHUS.

Take care, my friend; upon that ground your footing is but ticklish.

EURIPIDES.

I taught these youths to speechify.

ÆSCHYLUS.

I say so too. Moreover

I say, that for the public good, you ought to have been hanged first.

EURIPIDES.

The rules and forms of rhetoric; the laws of composition;
To prate, to state, and in debate to meet a question fairly;
At a dead lift to turn and shift; to make a nice distinction.

ESCHYLUS.

I grant it all; I make it all my ground of accusation.

EURIPIDES.

The whole in cases and concerns, occurring and recurring,
At every turn and every day, domestic and familiar;

So that the audience, one and all, from personal experience,
Were competent to judge the piece and form a fair opinion
Whether my scenes and sentiments agreed with truth and nature.
I never took them by surprise, to storm their understandings
With Memnons and Tydides's and idle rattle-trappings

Of battle-steeds and clattering shields, to scare them from their senses.
But for a test (perhaps the best) our pupils and adherents
May be distinguished instantly by person and behaviour:
His are Phormisius the rough, Meganetes the gloomy,
Hobgoblin-headed, trumpet-mouthed, grim-visaged, ugly-bearded;
But mine are Cleitophon the smooth, Theramenes the gentle.

BACCHUS.

Theramenes! a clever hand, an universal genius;

I never found him at a loss, in all the turns of party,

To change his watch-word at a word, or at a moment's warning.

EURIPIDES.

Thus it was that I began
With a nicer, neater plan;
Teaching men to look about,

Both within doors and without;

To direct their own affairs

And their house and household wares;

Marking everything amiss

"Where is that? and what is this?

This is broken-That is gone ;"

'Tis the system and the tone.

BACCHUS.

Yes, by Jove! and now we see
Citizens of each degree,

G G

That the moment they come in
Raise an uproar and a din,
Rating all the servants round:
"If it's lost it must be found.
Why was all the garlic wasted?
There that honey has been tasted;
And these olives pilfered here.
Where's the pot we bought last year?
What's become of all the fish?
Which of you has broke the dish?"
Thus it is; but heretofore

They sat them down to doze and snore.

Nothing is more remarkable in this scene than the skill with which the poet has made Euripides, all along the chief object of his satire, expose his own faults in the very speeches in which he affects to magnify his merits. The translation is far above my praise, but as a woman privileged to avow her want of learning, it may be permitted to express the gratitude which the whole sex owes to the late illustrious scholar, who has enabled us to penetrate to the heart of one of the scholar's deepest mysteries, and to become acquainted with something more than the name of Aristophanes.

XXXVII.

AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES.

VISIT TO DONNINGTON-BATTLE OF NEWBURY.

LORD CLARENDON-GEOFFREY CHAUCER-JOHN HUGHES.

Or all places connected with the Great Civil War, none retains traces more evident and complete of its ravages than the beautiful district which a tolerable pedestrian may traverse in a morning walk, and which comprises the site of the two battles of Newbury, and the ruins of Donnington Castle, one of the most memorable sieges of the Parliamentary Army.

I went over that most interesting ground (not, however, on foot) on one of the most brilliant days of the last brilliant autumn, with the very companion for such an excursion: one who has shown in his "Boscobel " how well he can unite the most careful and accurate historical research with the rarer power which holds attention fixed upon the page; and who,

possessing himself a fine old mansion at the foot of the Castle Hill, and having a good deal of the old cavalier feeling in his own character, takes an interest almost personal in the events and the places of the story.

The first of these engagements took place, according to Clarendon, on the 18th of September, 1643, and has been most minutely related by contemporary writers, the noble historian of the Rebellion, Oldmixon, Heath, the anonymous author of "The Memoirs of Lord Essex," and many others, varying as to certain points, according to their party predilections, but agreeing in the main. A very brief summary must answer my purpose.

Charles commanded the Royalists in person, whilst the Parliamentary forces were led by Essex,-the King's object being to intercept the enemy, and prevent his reaching London. The common, then and i ow called "The Wash," was, together with the neighbouring lanes, the principal scene of the combat. The line of road has been in some measure altered, still sufficient indications remain to localise the several incidents of this hotly-contested field. Essex, assailed on his march from Hungerford by the fiery Rupert the evening before, encamped on the open common, "impatient," as one of the Commonwealth narrators says, "of the sloth of darkness," all the more so that the King is said to have sent the Earl a challenge to give battle the next day. On that day the great battle took place, when the valour of the raw and undisciplined trainbands, the citizen soldiers, so much despised by the cavaliers, withstood the chivalry of the royal army, and enabled the General, although hotly pursued for several miles, and furiously charged by Prince Rupert, who had three horses killed under him that day, to accomplish his object, and conduct his troops to London.

Essex, previous to his advance towards Reading, sent a “ticket” to Mr. Fulke, the minister of Enborne parish, commanding him to bury all the dead on either side; and three huge mounds still attest the compliance of the clergyman with an order worthy of a Christian soldier. His Majesty, hearing of the "pious wish" of the Lord-General, issued his warrant to the Mayor of Newbury for the recovery of the wounded. Rival historians differ as to the number of the killed. But it seems certain that the loss of the Parliament

arians amounted to more than five hundred; and that on the King's part not fewer than a thousand were wounded and slain. Amongst them fell many distinguished loyalistsabove all, the young, the accomplished, the admirable Lord Falkland, he who, for talent and virtue, might be called the Hampden of his party, and who, like Hampden, left no equal behind.

The night before the battle he had slept at the house of Mr. Head, whom my companion (a man of ancient family and high connexions) was proud to claim among his ancestry; and tradition says, that being convinced that an engagement the next day was inevitable, and being strongly impressed with the presentiment that it would prove fatal to himself, he determined, in order to be fully prepared for the event, to receive the sacrament. Accordingly very early on the morning of the battle it was administered to him by the clergyman of Newbury, and Mr. Head and the whole family, by Lord Falkland's particular wish, were present. It is also related that his corpse, a few hours afterwards, was brought slung on a horse, and deposited in the Town Hall, from whence it was subsequently removed for interment.

Such strong impressions of coming death were not uncommon in that age to men of imaginative temperament. But it is not improbable that Lord Falkland, in that hour of danger, remembered a prediction which had come across him strangely not many years before, and which is thus related :—

"Whilst he was with the King at Oxford, his Majesty went one day to see the Library, where he was shown, among other books, a 'Virgil,' nobly printed and exquisitely bound. The Lord Falkland, to divert the King, would have his Majesty make a trial of the Sortes Virgilianæ, an usual kind of divination in ages past, made by opening a 'Virgil.' The King, opening the book, the passage which happened to come up was that part of Dido's imprecation against Æneas, Æn. IV. 615, &c., which is thus translated by Dryden :

"Oppressed with numbers in the unequal field,
His men discouraged, and himself dispelled,
Let him for succour sue from place to place,
Torn from his subjects, and his son's embrace.'

King Charles seeming concerned at this accident, the Lord Falkland, who observed it, would likewise try his own fortune