Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/76

lxxiv writings, from first to last, maintaining their calm and pure serenity, unmarred by any low thoughts or even sensuous imagery, the indirect testimony of the friendship of Nikias and Herodotos, of the admiration and reverence of the people. Few dramatic poets, even of those who have lived under happier influences, have left so little they would wish to blot. It had been well if the writings of Shakespeare, Lessing, Goethe, (not to speak of other names among the dramatists of modern Europe,) had been as free from the alloy of baser metal. We may well rest in the belief that the name of Sophocles stands as clear and unblemished as that of one against whom like charges were brought in the very recklessness of slander, the noble and true-hearted Socrates.

The name of Socrates reminds us of the fact, that the lives of the two men just brought together ran on,