Harpe is the organ of French taste, which is very different from the Grecian. Moreover, had not Voltaire discovered in the dramas of Sophocles beauties and merits which his own unaided genius could not reach, he would not have selected them as a model. Yet, with that unaccountable perversity of mind which distinguished him through life, he denies the artistic excellence of Sophocles, and claimed to have surpassed him in many points; less modest in this than the illustrious Racine, who sought to temper and guide his own genius by models of Grecian art. Voltaire considered the chaste simplicity of Sophocles, his classical taste and severe adherence to the rules of art, as lifelessness, as giving mere statuesque effect instead of the warmth and rich coloring of life. He, therefore, attempted, en petit maître, an improvement which was to result in the establishment of French taste and genius over Grecian, and in the overthrow of Attic ascendancy. But we will see whether Voltaire succeeded in his design. To mark more strongly the difference he conceived to exist between the ideal standard of dramatic excellence and that reached by Sophocles, he selected the story of Edipus, a dramatization on which Sophocles had expended all the elegance of his exquisitely pure imagination, its brilliancy, warmth, and elevation, the utmost severity of art, and that polish which much toil and the frequent kind labor could bestow.

Let us now compare Sophocles' opening of the Edipus Tyrannus with the manner in which Voltaire manages the same scene. The latter brings before us an interview between Philoctetes, whom he has substituted for Creon, and a Theban who relates all that had lately taken place within the walls of Thebes. How different this from the magnificent spectacle with which the Grecian poet opens the scene! The people, young and old, rich and poor, wise and foolish, flock with one accord to the royal house of Edipus, whom they revered as children would a father, beseeching him to check the terrible scourge which was devastating their beloved Thebes. He consoles them, he cheers them, and assures them he will leave no means untried to lighten the weight of sorrow which oppresses them, and they, even amid the terrors which impend, burst into a hymn of thanksgiving to so wise and provident a king. When we contrast this with the accumulated horrors which so rapidly ensue, we recognise the deep art of the poet, the cunning weaving together of incidents apparently disconnected, and their

swift concurrence to a most terrible catastrophe. When we contrast it with the sudden arrival of Creon crowned with laurel, the bearer of the Delphic oracle, with the deep emotion and religious gravity of the choral ode which follows Creon's recital, we are impressed by the deeply tragical nature of the scene and the wondrous art displayed in its construction. Instead of this, Voltaire is flippant in speech and common-place in sentiment in the interview between the Theban and Philoctetes. Jocasta, who is a frivolous character, selfish and irreverent, is a frequent interlocutor in the Edipus of Voltaire, whereas Sophocles used her sparingly, and only towards the end, where her presence heightens the tragical effect of the play, and gives force to the impending catastrophe. Sophocles permits a messenger to relate the death of Jocasta. Voltaire, with affected philosophy, puts these words into the mouth of the dying queen :

"Au milieu des horreurs dont le destin m'opprime,
J'ai fait rougir les dieux qui m'ont forcée au crime."

Very like the subtlety of Lucan, but entirely removed from the simplicity of Grecian genius. We find another consequence of tampering with faultless models in the scene between Jocasta and Edipus-a scene which, in the Greek poet, much resembles that between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after the murder was done, regarded as a most truthful exhibition of the powers of remorse, as this is of intense anxiety. When Edipus began to suspect the fearful truth, he plies Jocasta with serried questions, fast and frequent, about Laius, his age, appearance, and the circumstances of his setting forth from home, and Jocasta answers with a brevity and pointedness entirely in keeping with the anxiety of the monarch

"Jo. My Edipus, what means this wild dismay?
Ed. Oh! ask not, ask not, tell me of this Laius:

What was his aspect, what his age? Of speak!
Jo. His port was lofty, the first snows of age

Had tinged his locks, his form resembled thine.
Ed. Wretch that I am, on mine own head, it seems,

Have I called down this dread destroying curse.
Jo. How says't thou, king? I tremble to behold thee.
Ed. I fear the prophet saw, alas! too clearly.

One question more, and all will be disclosed.
Jo. I tremble, but will truly tell thee all.
Ed. Went the king private, or with many guards
Encompassed, as became his regal sway?
Jo. His followers were but five--a herald one,
Sole rode the monarch in a single car."

Here we have a scene which, for nature and simplicity, cannot be surpassed; but contrast with it the cold declamation of Voltaire:

"Depeignez-moi du moins ce prince malheureux.
Jo. Puisque vous rappelez un souvenir facheux.

Malgré le froid des ans, dans sa male vieillesse,
Les yeux brillaient encore du feu de la jeunesse,
Son front cicatrisé sous ses cheveux blanches,
Imprimait le respect aux mortels interdits,
Et si j'ose, seigneur, dire ce que je pense,
Laius ait avec vous assez de ressemblance,
Et je m'applaudissais de retrouver en vous,
Ainsi que les vertus les traits de mon epoux."

Voltaire had dramatic genius, but he was not sufficiently imbued with the spirit of the antique to attempt an imitation of Sophocles, and he has,therefore, given a philosophical polish instead of Grecian simplicity; he has given warmth and rich coloring instead of the energy and rapid action of Sophocles. Yet Voltaire is the champion of modern art, whom La Harpe opposes to the poets of the ancient Greek school, and especially to Sophocles; but herein even his compatriots differ from the most laborious French critic of the eighteenth century; and however he may admire Racine, they withhold the fame from Voltaire. In Germany, where the romantic school prevails, the beauties of Sophocles are not appreciated, for the German mind condemns too strongly, and in denouncing what it calls the straight-laced art of Sophocles it neglects or fails to discern those beauties which are hidden from unsympathetic souls. Hence the labors of German critics in the department of the Grecian drama are mostly commentatorial, as shown by the deep studies and laborious researches of Brunck in regard to Sophocles.

The style of Shakespeare is too dominant in England and in Germany, where Goethe and Schiller are modelled after Shakespeare, to admit the hope of a revival of the Grecian drama, for even Antigone, the best adapted of all Sophocles' plays to modern histrionic power, never met with encouraging success in either country. Nor, indeed, is it to be wished that an exotic should ever supplant the healthy indigenous art that belongs to each; but the rules of art are immutable, and there is no doubt that a strict adherence to them, such as was rendered imperative in Greece, would lift our modern drama high out of the slough into which it is rapidly sinking. It was this art which made Sophocles the bee of Attica and not a hornet; with a sting sharp indeed,

but not fatal; it was it that curbed the restless imagination which made Eschylus run wildly riot; it was it that imparted that vein of humanity which runs constantly through Sophocles' plays, and relieves the grim character of necessity, which would otherwise have entirely darkened them.

Considered in a moral point of view, no poet could have contributed more effectually to elevate the moral sentiment of his countrymen than Sophocles. Cicero called him the divine poet, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus cannot too highly praise the dignity of his characters, their magnanimity and their utter contempt of meanness. Perhaps there is no feature in the creations of Sophocles' imagination we more admire than the evenness of mind and temper with which he endues his principal personages-qualities of character which are the surest safeguard to virtue and the shortest course to wisdom. Indeed, philosophy presents us no more admirable spectacle than a man who bears with undaunted courage the ills of fortune, and knows how to temper his joy in prosperity. If this were apathy or the result of an abnormal constitution of mind, it would not interest us; but when we see a strong will guide the passions, and sometimes reel in the struggle, we recognise a nature that is human, and at once our keenest sympathy is awakened. Thus Sophocles, in his Edipi, exhibits the mind at first overwhelmed and paralysed by sudden calamity, but, as it recovers from the shock, rising gradually above the vicissitudes of fortune, and at last reaching that calm elevation where the tempest of passion never rages.

In him we notice the mild philosophy which places happiness in the faithful discharge of duty, and offers as the sweetest reward to well-doers the consciousness of having pleased the gods. No matter how dreadful the calamities which thicken around us through life, and leave no moment free from retributive fate, there always remains, according to Sophocles' philosophy, the sweet hope that virtue will receive its reward, and this, like a mild ray, lightens the gloomiest hour of life. Iron necessity hurries wretched Edipus through every degree of misery down to its lowest. depths yet he is not utterly abandoned and destitute of hope; for his good actions, like a bright chain, link him to heaven, and at last lift him to its brightness and bliss. On the other hand, Creon is punished for his duplicity and cruelty, by seeing all his hopes blasted, his son and wife fallen by suicidal hands, and himself gnawed by remorse. How admirale,

too, are not the lessons of virtue, and the sentiments of elevated morality inculcated in the choral hymns? The choir composed of venerable sages, whose hairs had grown blanched in the study of wisdom and the service of the state, sets forth in brilliant vers: the charms of a virtuous life, the favors bestowed by the gods on those who do their behests, and the happiness in store for them hereafter. This is the role

assigned, indeed, specially to the choir, as Horace says, the officium virile, and hence we find them the undeviating friends of virtue and wisdom, even at the risk of incurring the displeasure of their sovereigns, nor could Sophocles have aimed a more keenly cutting thrust at the Thebans, the constant enemies.of Athens, and whom Demosthenes always delights to call stupid and barbarous, than by rendering their chorus in the Antigone, the pliant tool of the tyrant Creon. If the beautiful thoughts and sentiments glowing with sound morality, which adorn the choral effusions of Sophocles, were placed in one setting, they would sparkle with a brighter effulgence of philosophy and truth than all the tedious rhetorical dissertations of Euripides. Having written in the halcyon days of Grecian literature and art, Sophocles had within reach all that could charm the eye and ear, delight the imagination, or enrich the intellect; he was in hourly converse with the men who made the glory of Pericles' reign, for whose companionship he forfeited the favors of kings; he had contemplated the divine works of Xerxes, and the sculptured marbles of Phidias; he had communed with the divine Plato, whose philosophy sparkles in his tragedies like gems; he had marked with a seer's eye the speedy downfall of his country, and he strove by his genius to intensify that flame of intellect which made Greece the beacon light to all nations, but which was at the same time the certain forerunner of her decadence.

ART. VIII.-Report of the Congressional Committee on Reconstruc tion. Washington, June 8, 1866.

WE have carefully examined this document, and have failed to find in it any statesmanlike views. It breathes a partisan spirit throughout, and exhibits much more passion than reason. We certainly do not take it up with any disposition to find fault; on the contrary, we should rather commend than censure it, if we could do so conscientiously. But our impression of it is that it is decidedly mischievous;