of ‘Low’ and ‘Wrong,’ and reproduced all in their turn.  Some poet of the future, born perhaps in those Cassiterides, may defy the mechanics of the case, and place himself in such a position as to see high and low at once—­be Tragic and Comic at the same time.  But he meanwhile has been Athens’ best friend—­her wisest also—­since he has not challenged failure by attempting what he could not perform.  He has not risked the fate of Thamyris, who was punished for having striven with the higher powers, as if his vision had been equal to their own."[50] And he recites a fragment of song, which Mr. Browning unfortunately has not completed, describing the fiery rapture in which that poet marched, all unconscious, to his doom.  Some laughing promise and prophecy ensues, and Aristophanes departs, in the ‘rose-streaked morning grey,’ bidding the couple farewell till the coming year.

That year has come and gone.  Sophocles has died:  and Aristophanes has attained his final triumph in the “Frogs”—­a play flashing with every variety of his genius—­as softly musical in the mystics’ chorus as croaking in that of the frogs—­in which Bacchus himself is ridiculed, and Euripides is more coarsely handled than ever.  And once more the voice of Euripides has interposed between the Athenians and their doom.[51] When AEgos Potamos had been fought, and Athens was in Spartan hands, Euthykles flung the “choric flower” of the “Electra” in the face of the foe, and

       “... because Greeks are Greeks, though Sparte’s brood,
       And hearts are hearts, though in Lusandros’ breast,
       And poetry is power,....” (p. 253.)

the city itself was spared.  But when tragedy ceased, comedy was allowed its work, and it danced away the Piraean bulwarks, which were demolished, by Lysander’s command, to the sound of the flute.

And now Euthykles and Balaustion are nearing Rhodes.  Their master lies buried in the land to which they have bidden farewell; but the winds and waves of their island home bear witness to his immortality:  for theirs seems the voice of nature, re-echoing the cry, “There are no gods, no gods!” his prophetic, if unconscious, tribute to the One God, “who saves” him.

Balaustion has no genuine historic personality.  She is simply what Mr. Browning’s purpose required:  a large-souled woman, who could be supposed to echo his appreciation of these two opposite forms of genius, and express his judgments upon them.  But the Euripides she depicts is entirely constructed from his works; while her portrait of Aristophanes shows him not only as his works reflect, but as contemporary criticism represented him; he is one of the most vivid of Mr. Browning’s characters.  The two transcripts from Euripides seem enough to prove that that poet was far more human than Aristophanes professed to think; but the belief of Aristophanes in the practical asceticism of his rival was in some degree justified by popular