poets whose works have in part been preserved, one only died in his birthplace. Æschylus quitted Athens in dudgeon at a charge of sacrilege, and Euripides ended his days at a foreign court. After a short sojourn in Magnesia, he went to Pella, the capital of the then small, and in the eyes of republican Greeks unimportant, kingdom of Macedonia. He was invited to it by the reigning sovereign, Archelaus, who in his way was a sort of Lorenzo de' Medici, attracting to his court artists, poets, and philosophers, and corresponding with them when at a distance. Among those whom he invited was Socrates; but he, who cared for neither money nor goods, and who spoke his mind pretty freely at all times and to all people, declined going to Pella, thinking perhaps that he would make an indifferent courtier, and knowing that despots have (as well as long hands) their caprices. Archelaus—the Macedonian kings always affected to be zealously Hellenic—established a periodical Olympic festival in honour of Jupiter and the Muses, and perhaps spoke Greek as his native tongue, and with as good accent as Frederick the Great is said to have spoken French. At Pella Euripides met with a reception that may have led him to regret his not sooner quitting litigious and scurrilous Athens, where housewives abominated his name and doubtless pitied Chœrilla and Melitto, and where orthodox temple-goers were scandalised by his theological opinions, Lucian mentions a report that the poet held some public office in Macedonia, which, seeing that he never meddled with even parish business at home, is scarcely probable. As little likely is it that
