Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/70

lx ear, as well as amidst a sympathizing crowd, was a fact of no small importance in the mental history of Athens. It contributed to exalt their imagination, like the grand edifices and ornaments added during the same period to the Acropolis."

The designs of Flaxman from Homer and Æschylus are wrought into our damask and engraved upon our glass; it is time that the thoughts of the great poets, from whom he drew his inspiration, should be brought home, with all their rich treasure of imagery to the hearts and minds of our people. What noble entertainment might not be drawn from "Heroic poems and Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal ornament," if, appealing as they do to the feelings of our common humanity, they were made appreciable to the popular understanding by illustrations drawn from history and art!

With reference to the moral influence of poetry, Joubert says, "Voulez-vous connaître la morale? Lisez les poëtes; ce qui vous plaît chez eux, approfondissez-le; c'est le vrai; ils doivent être la grande étude du philosophe qui veut connaître l'homme."

Believing that Æschylus strikingly corroborates this utterance, in all humility I offer to the public this version of his greatest work.