and pull the coryphæus when Scylla is the subject. Such is tragedy. It may also be compared to what the modern actors are in the estimation of their predecessors; for Myniscus used to call Callipides, on account of his intemperate action, the ape; and Tyndarus was censured on the same account. What these performers are with respect to their predecessors, the tragic imitation, when entire, is to the epic. The latter, then, it is urged, addresses itself to hearers of the better sort, to whom the addition of gesture is superfluous: but tragedy is for the people; and being, therefore, the most vulgar kind of imitation, is evidently the inferior. But now, in the first place, this censure falls, not upon the poet's art, but upon that of the actor; for the gesticulation may be equally labored in the recitation of an epic poem, as it was by Sosistratus; and in singing, as by Mnasitheus, the Opuntian. Again, all gesticulation is not to be condemned; since even all dancing is not, but such only as is unbecoming-such as was objected to Callipides, and is now objected to others, whose gestures resemble those of immodest women. Further, tragedy, as well as the epic, is capable of producing its effect even without action; we can judge of it perfectly by reading. If, then, in other respects, tragedy be superior, it is sufficient that the fault here objected is not essential to it. Tragedy has the advantage in the following respects: It possesses all that is possessed by the epic; it might even adopt its metre: and to this it makes no inconsiderable addition in the music and the decoration; by the latter of which the illusion is heightened, and the pleasure arising from the action is rendered. more sensible and striking. It has the advantage of greater clearness and distinctness of impression, as well in reading as in representation. It has also that of attaining the end of its imitation in a shorter compass; for the effect is more pleasurable when produced by a short and close series of impressions than when weakened by diffusion through a long extent of time, as the "Edipus" of Sophocles, for example, would be if it were drawn out to the length of the "Iliad." Further, there is less unity in all epic imitation, as appears from this that any epic poem will furnish matter for several tragedies. For, supposing the poet to choose a fable strictly one, the consequence must be either that his poem, if proportionably contracted, will appear curtailed and defective, or, if extended to the usual length, will become weak, and, as it were, diluted. If, on the other hand, we suppose him to employ several fablesthat is, a fable composed of several actions-his imitation is no longer strictly one. The "Iliad," for example, and the "Odyssey" contain many such subordinate parts, each of which has a certain magnitude and unity of its own; yet is the construction of those poems as perfect and as nearly approaching to the imitation of a single action, as possible. If, then, tragedy be superior to the epic in all these respects, and also in the peculiar end at which it aims (for each species ought to afford, not any sort of pleasure indiscriminately, but such only as has been pointed out), it evidently follows that tragedy, as it attains more effectually the end of the art itself, must deserve the preference. And thus much concerning tragic and epic poetry in general and their several species, the number and the differences of their parts, the causes of their beauties and their defects, the censures of critics, and the principles on which they are to be answered. Complete. Translated by Thomas Twining. A THE DISPOSITIONS CONSEQUENT ON WEALTH NY one, without any great penetration, may distinguish the dispositions consequent on wealth; for (its possessors) are insolent and overbearing, from being tainted in a certain way by the getting of their wealth. For they are affected as though they possessed every good; since wealth is a sort of standard of the worth of other things; whence everything seems to be purchasable by it. And they are affectedly delicate and purse-proud; they are thus delicate on account of their luxurious lives, and the display they make of their prosperity. They are purse-proud, and violate the rules of good breeding, from the circumstance that every one is wont to dwell upon that which is beloved and admired by him, and because they think that others. are emulous of that, of which they are themselves. But at the same time they are thus affected reasonably enough; for many are they who need the aid of men of property. Whence, too, that remark of Simonides addressed to the wife of Hiero respecting the wealthy and the wise; for when she asked him whether it were better to have been born wealthy or wise, he replied, wealthy; for, he said, he used to see the wise hanging on at the doors of the wealthy. And (it is a characteristic of the rich) that they esteem themselves worthy of being in office, for they consider themselves possessed of that on account of which they are entitled to be in office. And, in a word, the disposition of the rich is that of a fool amid prosperity. However, the dispositions of those who are but lately rich, and of those who have been so from of old, are different; inasmuch as those who have recently become rich have all these faults in a greater and a worse degree; for the having recently become rich is as it were an inexpertness in wealth. And they are guilty of offenses, not of a malicious nature, but such as are either offenses of contumely or intemperance. Chapter XVI of the treatise on "Rhetoric.» A THE DISPOSITIONS OF MEN IN POWER, AND OF THE FORTUNATE ND in the same way on the subject of power, the most striking almost of its dispositions are evident; for of these power has some in common with wealth, and others which are better. For men in power are more ambitious and more manly in their dispositions than the wealthy; from their aiming at all duties whatsoever, which from their power they have the means of discharging. And they are less given to trifling, because, from a necessity of looking carefully to their power, they are constrained to a diligent attention. And they comport themselves with a dignity which is conciliatory rather than repulsive; for their claims for dignity render them more conspicuous; on which account, they bear themselves moderately: but conciliatory dignity is a softened and graceful sedateness. And, if they do transgress the bounds of right, it is not in small points, but in those which are of importance, that they are guilty. But good fortune, according to its constituents, is of the disposition of the states which have been described; since those which appear to be the greatest instances of good fortune resolve themselves ultimately into these states: and, besides these, to the excellence of one's progeny, and to personal advantages. But men are usually more overbearing and inconsiderate in conse quence of prosperity. But one disposition, and that most excellent, is a concomitant of good fortune, viz., that the fortunate are lovers of the gods, and are disposed toward the Deity with a sort of confidence, in consequence of the goods which have accrued to them from fortune. The subject, then, of the dispositions as they conform to age and to fortune has been discussed; for from the opposites of my remarks the opposite subjects will be evident; the subject, for example, of the disposition of a poor, or unfortunate person, or of one out of power. Chapter XVII of the treatise on "Rhetoric.» MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888) S THE exponent of the idea of "Sweetness and Light" as qualities of the cultured intellect, Matthew Arnold occupied a distinctive place in the literature of his generation, and it is probable that much of what he has written will survive even after many such marked changes of taste as have already taken place. He represented the realities of that high intellectual refinement to which some of his imitators had no other title than that given them by their desire to be credited with it. In the generation to which he belonged English aristocratic liberalism showed itself ineffective to deal with the rapidly accumulating problems of civilization. The conservatism which means "holding its own and other people's also» under "The good old rule, the simple plan, That he can take who has the power And he can keep who can," was never unequal to its opportunities. But when for aristocratic liberalism, opportunity meant the sacrifice of its own individual and class privileges, the closing years of the century show nothing but hesitation and vacillation, the longing for progress and the lack of courage to advance, which expresses itself in the sadness of the highest intellect of the English literature of this period. The whole æsthetic movement, with its idea that the world can be saved by the sweetness of those high minds whose culture separates them from the rest, seems to be a reaction from politics, due to the indecision of great political leaders who, when trusted with power, feared to use it to carry out what they had advocated in opposition. Even when he is most the poet and essayist, Matthew Arnold is still the sociologist, the student of the fundamental principles of society. The sadness which underlies his work, prose as well as verse, and develops itself in the sudden antithesis of his exquisite: "Strew on her roses, roses, |