I suppose that
Salisbury Plain would seem too vast a theatre: but at least a cathedral
would be required in dimensions, York Minster or Cologne. Lamp-light gives
to us some advantages which the ancients had not. But much art would be
required to train and organize the lights and the masses of superincumbent
gloom, that should be such as to allow no calculation of the dimensions
overhead. Aboriginal night should brood over the scene, and the sweeping
movements of the scenic groups: bodily expression should be given to the
obscure feeling of that dark power which moved in ancient tragedy: and we
should be made to know why it is that, with the one exception of the
_Persae_, founded on the second Persian invasion, [11] in which
Aeschylus, the author, was personally a combatant, and therefore a
_contemporary_, not one of the thirty-four Greek tragedies surviving,
but recedes into the dusky shades of the heroic, or even fabulous times.
A failure, therefore, I think the 'Antigone,' in relation to an object
that for us is unattainable; but a failure worth more than many ordinary
successes. We are all deeply indebted to Mr. Murray's liberality, in two
senses; to his liberal interest in the noblest section of ancient
literature, and to his liberal disregard of expense. To have seen a
Grecian play is a great remembrance. To have seen Miss Helen Faucit's
Antigone, were _that_ all, with her bust, [Greek: _os agalmatos_] [12] and
her uplifted arm 'pleading against unjust tribunals,' is worth--what is it
worth? Worth the money? How mean a thought! To see _Helen_, to see Helen
of Greece, was the chief prayer of Marlow's Dr.
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