PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION. ALTHOUGH I have not been allowed to bestow as much time as I could have wished on this revision of the Theatre of the Greeks, and must therefore look forward to some future opportunity of doing what still remains to be done for the improvement of the work, I believe that the present Edition will be found in every respect superior to the Fourth, which is the last that passed through my hands. Owing to some neglect, on the part of those who till lately had the management of this Publication, the Fifth Edition was a mere reprint of its predecessor, and I did not even see the sheets on their way through the press. With the limited time permitted to me on the present occasion, I have been obliged to bestow my chief attention upon the introduction. With some imperfections, it is still, I believe, the only Treatise accessible to the English student, which enters at any length into the early history of the Greek Theatre'. Müller's chapters on the Dramatists, which I 1 The author of the article Tragoedia, in Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, has most freely availed himself of this Treatise, not only copying the quotations, which he might have derived from his own reading or from other sources, and which, in any case, he was entitled to use again, but appropriating my theory, and even adopting the peculiar oversights and misconceptions, which had found their way into my former Edition. His only acknowledgment is a reference to the Orchomenian Inscriptions, for which he might have gone to Böckh himself; and he sometimes cites the subsequent publications of Müller and Bode, where he is almost transferring my very words. In fact, he has compiled directly from the Theatre of the Greeks, and has studiously concealed his obligations. This article seems to be repeated in the second edition of the Dictionary; and though I make the writer welcome to the errors, into which I have led him, and which he is still unable to correct, I think it right to notice the servile use which has been made of one of the books supposed to be superseded by the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. 303602 translated from his manuscripts subsequently to my last revision of this book, are chiefly valuable on account of his critical analysis of the separate plays. As Schlegel's Lectures, which have always been included in this collection, discuss this part of the subject with a great deal of acuteness and originality, it was needless to go again over the same ground. Besides, my business in this Introduction was not to indulge in an æsthetical criticism of the remains of the Greek Drama, but to make the contrast between the ancient Stage and that of modern Europe, as distinct and palpable as I could ;—to give individuality to the preparatory labours of Arion and Thespis;-to characterize the great Dramatists themselves, with emphasis and accuracy;and to enable the young student of the originals to realize in some measure the mise en scène of a Greek play. To this last object, the illustrations which now appear in the seventh chapter, may perhaps in some degree contribute. The reader is probably aware that this work, as a whole, did not originate with me, and that I am not responsible for the selection of Papers of which it is mainly composed. That the first compiler supplied a want, which was generally felt among classical students, is sufficiently proved by the large and longcontinued demand for this book. But it appears to me that the time is nearly come when considerable modifications must be introduced into the arrangement and composition of these miscellaneous materials. The last part, at all events, must at some future opportunity be either remodelled or omitted. In the present Edition, the whole Work has for the first time been printed under my own eye, and I trust that this general supervision has not been without some good effects. J. W. D. King Edward's School, Bury St. Edmunds, 28th February, 1849. I.-ARISTOTLE'S TREATISE ON POETRY, translated by Twining II. EXTRACTS FROM BENTLEY'S DISSERTATION UPON THE EPISTLES OF EXTRACTS FROM A. W. VON SCHLEGEL'S LECTURES ON THE DRAMA 2. Essence of Tragic and Comic. 73. Structure of Grecian Theatre-Nature of Greek Tragedy |