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23, and from the Poetic, xix. 4. But the case is very different in the definition we are examining. For there certain passions are viewed in their relation to a particular art, and as proper to be excited by it; and if Aristotle had meant to include all passions, he would hardly have used the word TOLOÚTV, which in that case were worse than useless, and could only have the effect of misleading the reader. And that the commentators on the passage are almost universally against M. Von Raumer's interpretation, may be seen by referring to the two and twenty versions of it which he has given in his essay; all which, except four, render "such" or "similar" passions: and of those four, one only-that of Alonso Ordoñez-includes all the passions, indiscriminately.

It would seem, then, that M. Von Raumer undertakes to reconcile two meanings, neither of which was contemplated by Aristotle. But even of the two which he takes in hand, it will, probably, be admitted, that the Stagirite could only have held one; unless we be disposed to assert that the views of the great philosopher were contradictory or inconsistent, and that he made no distinction between two passions and all. At best, then, the Professor is reconciling not Aristotle with himself, but his commentators with one another.

M. Von Raumer, however, proceeds to develope his theory as follows:

Other passions besides fear and pity are represented on the stage, and indeed, more frequently as love, jealousy, ambition, &c. Their representation must have an effect on the corresponding passions of the spectator, and result either in strengthening or weakening them. But, if the tragic picture of each passion works on each, why does not Aristotle say that tragedy accomplishes the purification of all passions? and why does he specify only fear and pity?

M. Von Raumer has certainly here proposed to himself two pithy questions; let us see how he answers them.

Every passion, he says, may be purged by certain means, but all these means are not within the province of tragedy, which has a peculiar means of its own. Hatred cannot be purged by hatred, nor jealousy by jealousy, &c.; yet all admit of purgation by some common tragic element, and that is fear and pity. These may operate upon all passions; since compassion comprehends all the part which we take in others, and fear all that relates to ourselves. All passions, then, may be purged in passing through these two conductors, and none without; and it is therefore an indispensable condition that the tragic interest be powerful enough to excite them.

12 It should be observed that in this passage of the Poetics the author is only remarking upon the way in which the speeches of tragedy should be prepared

in order to their effect upon those to whom they are addressed; viz. the other dramatis persona, and not the audi

ence.

Here, it may be asked, Are fear and pity the means only, and not also the objects of purgation? M. Von Raumer does not assert so much, and, indeed, it is clear from the terms of his thesis, which is given in the note above, that he includes them in the operation: nor would the words of the definition admit of any other meaning. But then we have this awkward consequence, that the more fear and pity are purged and moderated, the less efficient must they be as means to operate on other passions; and tragedy, as a moral lesson, must soon become altogether useless. Independently, however, of this, M. Von Raumer seems hardly to have taken a correct view of the way in which the spectator is wrought upon by the mimic passions of the stage. When we behold the love of Romeo, the ambition of Macbeth, or the jealousy of Othello, we do not partake in that love, that ambition, or that jealousy, and may not even have ever been in a situation to feel them; what we experience is, fear and pity at seeing the victims of those passions hurried on to destruction by their power. But, what is more to the purpose, Aristotle does not require the presence of such passions in the tragic hero; nay, they are even better away. Thus the beau ideal of a tragic character with him is such a man as Edipus, who falls into misfortune, not through crime or passion, but through some great oversight or error (di áμapríav Tivá, § Ké). And what other reason can be assigned for this, than that the fear and pity of the spectator may not be diminished by the distraction of other passions? But it is sufficiently evident that the more a character is calculated to excite, in this way, those two emotions which Aristotle considers the more peculiar objects of tragedy, the less fitted does it become to convey any moral lesson.

The conclusion, however, that, in the Poetic, tragedy is treated merely as a subject of art and not of morality, does not seem to justify M. Von Raumer's inference that, in that case, it must be positively immoral. That dramatic art and virtue are, as he eloquently contends", perfectly compatible, few, perhaps-unless they be lineally descended from Prynne-will be inclined to deny. But is it not possible to treat of the drama merely as a subject of art, and without also viewing it as a question of morals? M. Von Raumer is frequent in his appeals to the sister-work of the Poetic-the Rhetoric; and even quotes it to shew the lofty idea which Aristotle entertained of happiness as being inseparably connected with virtue". He is not there, however, giving any definition of happiness, but merely stating the various conceptions of it

13 Wie man aber dies und ähnliches stellen und deuten möge so viel steht fest. Aristoteles hielt eine Versöhnung der Kunst und Sittlichkeit für möglich, wirklich, nothwendig. Die Ideen des Guten und Schönen behalten ihm ihr eigenes, eigenthümliches Wesen, keine

soll die andere vernichten, oder auch nur unbedingt beherrschen; wol aber findet zwischen ihnen stete Wechselwirkung und harmonische Zusammenwirkung statt," &c. P. 187.

14 ἔστω δὴ εὐδαιμονία εὐπραξία μετὰ άpeτns, &c. Rhet. i. 5.

formed by mankind, in order that the rhetorician may know how to address himself to their different sentiments; and, accordingly, in the three other views of it mentioned, virtue is not noticed as an ingredient. It may be remarked, too, that M. Von Raumer has here changed the terms upon us, by substituting the more general one of happiness (evdapovía, glückseligkeit) for pleasure (ýdový, vergnügen); the purpose of which is not very obvious, unless it be that, as Aristotle speaks of the dový, or pleasure, resulting from tragedy, it is intended we should infer that the term is equivalent to evdamovía, or happiness; and that hence a moral end may be established by the substitution of an abiding feeling for a transient one. Such a course, however, is incompatible with any right method of reasoning; and the more inadmissible inasmuch as, a few chapters further on (cap. xi.) Aristotle supplies us with the true definition of ἡδονή—viz. a κίνησις ψυχῆς, or temporary emotion.

It may be remarked, by the way, that M. Von Raumer seems unacquainted with Twining's translation of the Poetic; as, amongst the versions which he gives of the celebrated definition the English one is taken from the inferior performance of Pye.

T. DYER.

[With respect to the text of the definition of tragedy in the Poetic (above, p. 190) Bekker, c. vi. reads ékáσrov, but omits à without noticing any various reading. It may therefore be presumed that the word is not recognised by either of the three MSS. of the Poetic which he collated. Εκάστου has probably been altered from kάor by a transcriber, who attending merely to the collocation of the words, and not to their meaning, thought it was governed by xwpis. In expanding this part of the definition lower down, Aristotle has the dative case: Tò dè xwpìs Toîs eldeσt, &c. A similar instance of the corruption per attractionem occurs above, at the end of c. i. in the following words: Taúras pèv οὖν λέγω τὰς διαφορὰς τῶν τεχνῶν, ἐν οἷς ποιοῦνται τὴν μίμησιν ; the meaning of which is, "I understand the differences of the several arts to consist in the means by which the imitation is effected." All the MSS. have, however, ais for ois.—EDITOR.]

15 "Das Vergnügen oder noch allgemeiner die Glückseligkeit ist (so lautet pie Anklage) dem Aristoteles höchster Zweck und höchstes Gut. Was versteht

er denn aber (diese Untersuchung erscheint unabweislich) unter Glückseligkeit?" &c. P. 186, 7.

3

XVI.

NAPOLEON ON THE CAPTURE OF TROY.

IN an article on 'Grecian Legends and Early History,' (of which a brief abstract was given in our first Number, p. 125), Mr. Grote adduces some examples of the rationalizing process by which the Greeks, particularly those of the later ages, converted mythology into history. The process was a simple one; it consisted in eliminating the marvellous and supernatural parts of the old poetical legend, and in supplying such other facts and motives as might render the narrative more consistent with the later and more philosophical, but more prosaic, standards of credibility'.

The first example to which he adverts is taken from Thucydides. This extraordinary man, who (as Mr. Grote remarks) has never been surpassed in his capacity for judging or describing recent events, was less happy in his mode of treating the mythical history of his country. Even at the dawn of historical criticism, it was natural that his sceptical and positive mind should refuse to admit the Iliad as a true narrative of events; but it was equally natural that he should so far share the universal belief of his countrymen as to assume that the poetry of Homer contained at least a nucleus of fact. Accordingly, he gives a sketch of the Trojan expedition, from which everything marvellous is excluded, and in which the events are treated according to the same canons of probability which he applies to the Peloponnesian war.

One of the first points which naturally attracts his attentiona question which he is about to consider fully in reference to his own subject,-is the cause of the Trojan war. It immediately occurs to him as highly improbable that so large a body of men should have made so distant an expedition, and have endured and inflicted so great evils, in order merely to recover Helen from Paris; he cannot believe that the oaths of her suitors given

1 See some remarks on this mode of inventing history, in Müller's Dorians, B. 1. ch. vii. § 5.

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to her father Tyndareus should have produced so mighty an effect as the collection of that vast armament, and the formation of the ten years' siege in Asia Minor. He therefore rejects the only cause of the war which is known to Homer and the early epic poets; and maintains that the war in truth had its origin in the great power of Agamemnon. The Greeks did not fight ten years against Troy in order to avenge the wrong offered by Paris to Menelaus, and to recover his wife and property, which the Trojan ravisher had carried away; but they were actuated by more politic motives. Agamemnon was a powerful king, with

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Helen was described by the author of the Cypria, as the daughter of Zeus and Nemesis see the long fragment in Ath. VIII. p. 334, C., and compare Preller, Demeter und Persephone, p. 154. This genealogy alluded to the evils which she was to bring upon her country; to her being, as Virgil calls her, Trojæ ac patriæ communis Erinnys. Homer must suppose the Greeks to have nourished their vengeance against Troy for a very long time; inasmuch as he makes Helen, in the 10th year of the war, say that it is twenty years since she left Menelaus (II. XXIV. 765), and therefore conceives the siege to have begun in the 10th year after Helen went to Troy.

3 Ελένην καὶ κτήματα πάντα. See the treaty in Iliad, 111. 276-91, and the declaration of Agamemnon, after Paris has been vanquished in single combat by Menelaus, ib. 456-60. The theft of the goods of Menelaus was an essential part

of the injury done him by Paris; according to the Cypria, Aphrodite contrives a meeting between Paris and Helen; after which, τὰ πλεῖστα κτήματα ἐνθέμενοι, VUKTÒS άTOTλÉOVƠi, Procl. Chrést. p. 473, Gaisford. See likewise the account of the άprayn of Helen, in Herod. 11. 114, 115, 118, where Thonis, the guardian of the Canobic mouth of the Nile, informs the king of the treachery of Paris, in the following words :—ξείνου γὰρ τοῦ ἑωυτοῦ ἐξαπατήσας τὴν γυναῖκα, αὐτήν τε ταύτην ἄγων ἥκει, καὶ πολλὰ κάρτα Xpúμata. According to Dictys, 1. 3, Paris carried off Helen et multas opes; also Æthra et Clymena Menelai affines, quæ ob necessitudinem ejus cum Helena agebant. Menelaus, however, according to this writer, was more affected by the loss of his kinswomen than of his wife; Queis cognitis Menelaus, etsi abstractio conjugis animum permoverat, multo amplius tamen ob injuriam affinium........... consternabatur,' (ib. 4). Dictys adds, that before the Greeks declared war against Troy, they sent Palamedes, Ulysses, and Menelaus thither, to demand the restoration of Helen, et quæ cum ea abrepta erant, (ib.) Priam, influenced by Hecuba, refuses to give her up; and the sons of Priam are peculiarly adverse to this step: "Videbant quippe quantæ opes cum ea advectæ essent; quæ universa, si Helena traderetur, necessario amitterent. Præterea permoti forma mulierum, quæ cum Helena venerant, nuptias sibi singularum jam animo destinaverant,' (ib. 7). In this way Dictys seeks to find a plausible reason for the unwillingness of the Trojans to deliver up Helen.

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