PREFACE.

EURIPIDES was born in the island of Salamis, in the seventy-fifth Olympiad; his parents Mnesarchus and Clito having retired thither from Athens at the time that city was menaced by the powerful armament of Xerxes. Historians are by no means agreed as to the rank of our Poet's Father and Mother: the proofs which some endeavour to adduce of their nobility do not appear by any means convincing; and if we admit the oracle of Apollo to have been consulted by them during the pregnancy of Clito, in regard to the fortunes of their future Child, as an attention to the voice of soothsayers is by no means peculiar to those of high birth or affluence, it might be too precipitate to conclude from thence, with Bayle, either that her station in life was superior to that of an herb-woman, or that the distressed circumstances of her Husband were not among his principal motives for changing the place of his abode. But whatever may have been the rank or occupation of Mnesarchus and Clito, they appear to have possessed the honourable title of free-born citizens of Athens.

The day on which Euripides came into the world was peculiarly auspicious to his country,

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being that of the Greeks' obtaining a decisive victory over the Persian fleet, an event, to which he is supposed by Barnes and the ablest critics to have alluded, in his description of the sacred tapestry with which Ion decorated the tent he erected at Delphi; a gross breach of chronology it must be owned, but such as the spirit of national glory has always been found not only to excuse, but applaud in a dramatic writer.

In his youth, Euripides was brought up to the gymnastic exercises; he moreover acquired sufficient knowledge in painting to be considered as one of the antient artists by the writers who have treated on that subject: but he gave early hopes of becoming more distinguished by his philosophical studies, and continued to be a pupil of Anaxagoras, whose lessons he attended with great assiduity, till finding his master exposed to persecution from his ardent search after wisdom, and in imminent danger of losing his life, he at about the age of eighteen applied himself to Dramatic Poetry; but amidst these more attractive employments was never unmindful of the strict precepts which he had imbibed in his tender years the attachment to real virtue so strongly displayed in his writings, and his invariable enmity to every species of Tyranny and Superstition, have secured to him that applause which mere genius is incapable of attaining; and it is with justice that he is considered by posterity as one of those few real Sages whe

have indeed employed fiction, but employed it principally as a vehicle for the noblest truths. That Euripides did not, with the garb and profession, by any means lay aside the study of Philosophy, is apparent, not only from the whole tenour of his works, but from the well-known intimacy of his friendship with the immortal Socrates; nor can it be unseasonable here to observe, that his superior success in the attempts he made to instruct mankind, may be attributed to his having artfully blended the lessons he gave to his countrymen with interesting tales of Gods. and Heroes, and formed an admirable combination of amusement with the most wholesome precepts that ever dignified the strain of the moral Muse.

The events transmitted to us of Euripides's life, though extended to no inconsiderable length by Barnes and Bayle, are very few in number; and we may collect from thence, that he passed most of his days in that unambitious retirement from public affairs, which is the usual sphere of a man deeply engaged in literary pursuits: the biographers record that he was twice married, and proved each time so unsuccessful in his choice, that his frequently speaking in harsh terms of the female sex may in a great measure be ascribed to domestic grievances, and the licentious conduct of his Wives, to whom they also impute his leaving Athens at an advanced age, and going to the court of Archelaus king of Macedon, by whom

Af

he was received with distinguished honours. ter residing at Pella about three years, he came to an unfortunate end: the general account is, that he was torn to pieces by hounds; but the circumstances of his death are variously represented; some have ascribed it to the malice of his enemies, others to mere accident, and suppose that his meditations caused him to wander too far into a wood he appears, at the time this calamity befel him, to have been more than seventy years old.

Archelaus caused the remains of the Tragic Bard to be interred at Pella with great funereal magnificence. No sooner did the account of his death reach Athens, than he was universally lamented by his countrymen; Sophocles, like a generous rival, appeared drest in mourning, and introduced his actors on the stage without garlands. The road leading from the city to the Piræus, was the spot pitched upon by the Athenians for erecting a monument in honour of Euripides. Though the pieces he composed were numerous, being according to some writers seventy-five, and according to others ninety-two, Moschopulus says he gained only five prizes, four while living, and one after his death: some years, however, before he retired to Macedon, Plutarch relates, in his Life of Nicias, that several Athenian soldiers whom the Sicilians had taken prisoners; by repeating to their conquerors some verses of Euripides, obtained the kindest