them. Short as the part of Agamemnon is, the poet has the address to throw such an amiable dignity around him that we soon become interested in his favour, and are predisposed to lament his fate. The character of Clytemnestra is finely marked—a high-spirited, artful, close, determined, dangerous woman. But the poet has nowhere exerted such efforts of his genius as in the scene where Cassandra appears: as a prophetess, she gives every mark of the divine inspiration, from the dark and distant hint, through all the noble imagery of the prophetic enthusiasm; till, as the catastrophe advances, she more and more plainly declares it; as a suffering princess, her grief is plaintive, lively, and piercing; yet she goes to meet her death, which she clearly foretells, with a firmness worthy the daughter of Priam and the sister of Hector; nothing can be more animated or more interesting than this scene. The conduct of the poet through this play is exquisitely judicious: every scene gives us some obscure hint or ominous presage, enough to keep our attention always raised, and to prepare us for the event; even the studied caution of Clytemnestra is finely managed to produce that effect; whilst the secrecy with which she conducts her design keeps us in suspense, and prevents a discovery till we hear the dying groans of her murdered husband.” As Mr. Browning announces in his preface to his translation of the tragedy, he has aimed at being literal at every cost, and has everywhere reproduced the peculiarities of the original. He has also made an attempt to reproduce the Greek spelling in English, which has made the poem more difficult than some other translations to the non-classical reader. We have ample recompense for this peculiarity by the way in which he has imbibed the spirit of his author, and so faithfully reproduced, not alone his phraseology, but his mind. It required a rugged poet to interpret for us correctly the ruggedness of an Æschylus. Line for line and word for word we have the tragedy in English as the Greeks had it in their own tongue. If there are obscurities, we must not in the present instance blame Mr. Browning: a reference to the original, so authorities tell us, will prove that Greek poets were at times obscure. The Agamemnon is part of the Oresteian Trilogy or group of three plays; this trilogy of Æschylus is our only example extant, and it is necessary to say something of the other parts. Atreus, the son of Pelops, was king of Mycenæ. By his wife Ærope were born to him Pleisthenes, Menelaus, and Agamemnon. Thyestes, the brother of Atreus, had followed him to Argos, and there seduced his wife, by whom he had two, or according to some, three children. Thyestes was banished from court on account of this, but was soon afterwards recalled by his brother that he might be revenged upon him. He prepared a banquet where Thyestes was served with the flesh of the children who were the offspring of his incestuous connection with his sister-in-law the queen. When the feast was concluded, the heads of the murdered children were produced, that Thyestes might see of what he had been partaking. It was fabled that the sun in horror shrank back in his course at the horrible sight. Thyestes fled. The crime brought the most terrible evils upon the family of which Agamemnon was a member. When this hero was murdered by his wife and her paramour, young Orestes was saved from his mother’s dagger by his sister Electra. When he reached the years of manhood, he visited his ancestral home, and assassinated both his mother and her lover Ægisthus. In consequence of this he was tormented by the Furies, and he exiled himself to Athens, where Apollo purified him. The murder of Clytemnestra by her son is described in the second play of the Trilogy, called the Choëphoræ or the Libation Pourers. The Furies is the title of the third and concluding play of the Trilogy. (For an account of Æschylus see p. 8.)

Notes.—[N.B. The references here are to the pages of the poem in the last edition of the complete works in sixteen vols.]—P. 269, Atreidai, a patronymic given by Homer to Agamemnon and Menelaus, as being the sons of Atreus; Troia, the capital of Troas == Troy. p. 270, Ilion, a citadel of Troy; Menelaos, a king of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon. p. 271, Argives, the inhabitants of Argos and surrounding country; Alexandros, the name of Paris in the Iliad: Atreus, son of Pelops, was king of Mycenæ; Danaoi, a name given to the people of Argos and to all the Greeks; Troes == Trojans. p. 272, Tundareus, king of Lacedæmon, who married Leda; Klutaimnestra == Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndarus by Leda. p. 273, Teukris land, the land of the Trojans—from Teucer, their king; “Achaians’ two-throned empery”: the brother kings Agamemnon and Menelaos. p. 274, Linos, the personification of a dirge or lamentation; Priamos, the last king of Troy, made prisoner by Hercules when he took the city. p. 275, Icïos Paian, an epithet of Apollo; Kalchas, a soothsayer who accompanied the Greeks to Troy. p. 277, Kalchis, the chief city of Eubœa, founded by an Athenian colony; Aulis, a town of Bœotia, near Kalchis; Strumon, a river which separates Thrace from Macedonia. p. 282, Hephaistos, the god of fire, according to Homer the son of Zeus and Hera. The Romans called the Greek Hephaistos Vulcan, though Vulcan was an Italian deity. The news of the fall of Troy was brought to Mycenæ by means of beacon fires, so fire was the messenger. Ide == Mount Ida; of Lemnos, an island in the Ægean Sea. p. 283, Athoan, of Mount Athos; Makistos == Macistos, a city of Tryphylia; Euripos, a narrow strait separating Eubœa from Bœotia; Messapios, a name of Bœotia; Asopos, a river of Thessaly; Mount Kitharion, sacred to the Muses and Jupiter. Hercules killed the great lion there; Mount Aigiplanktos was in Megaris; Strait Saronic: Saronicus Sinus was a bay of the Ægean Sea; Mount Arachnaios, in Argolis. p. 286, Ate, the goddess of revenge; Ares, the Greek name of the war-god Mars. p. 288, Aphrodite, a name of Venus. p. 290, Erinues == the Furies. p. 292, Puthian == Delphic; Skamandros, a river of Troas. p. 293, Priamidai, the patronymic of the descendants of Priam. p. 300, Threkian breezes == Thracian breezes; Aigaian Sea, the Ægean Sea; Achaian, pertaining to Achaia, in Greece. p. 301, Meneleos, son of Atreus, brother to Agamemnon and husband of Helen; water-Haides, the engulfing sea. p. 302, Zephuros, the west wind; Simois, a river in Troas which rises in Mount Ida and falls into the Xanthus. p. 304, Erinus, an avenging deity. p. 307, the Argeian monster == the company of Argives concealed in the wooden horse; Pleiads, a name given to seven of the daughters of Atlas by Pleione, one of the Oceanides. They became a constellation in the heavens after death. p. 309, “triple-bodied Geruon the Second,” Geryon, king of the Balearic Isles, fabled to have three bodies and three heads: Hercules slew him; Strophios the Phokian, at whose house Orestes was brought up with Pylades son of Strophios. p. 316, Kassandra, daughter of Priam, slain by Clytemnestra. p. 317, “Alkmene’s child”—Hercules was the son of Alkmene. p. 319, Ototoi—alas!; Loxias, a surname of Apollo. p. 322, papai, papai == O strange! wonderful! p. 324, Itus, or Itys, son of Tereus, killed by his mother. p. 325, “Orthian