equal numbers of the cousins contribute to the solemnity and greatness of the whole, while the improbability increases that separation from the actual world, by which an event, in itself not heroic, is raised to the level of the ideal.[1] This consideration is necessary to a due appreciation of the poetical value of the plot, and is not at all invalidated by the fact that Æschylus only used the story as he found it. Had it been other than it was, he would probably have modified it; but if it had been other, it would not have been Greek. The story of Io was well fitted to interest an Athenian audience for two reasons: because it gave opportunity for the romance of geography in general, and because it was connected with Egypt. The naval enterprise of the Athenians had of late been greatly developed, and they were becoming by this time acquainted with many distant countries; and an interest in geography was spread even among those who had stayed at home; while yet knowledge had not advanced far enough to remove the halo which the dimness of distance throws around strange lands, or to destroy the notion that far-off countries contained wonders and monsters innumerable. Something similar was the case in England in the great times of discovery, when the Plymouth sailor told the boy Raleigh endless stories of the Great Cham and Prester John, or the wondrous wealth of El Dorado. But of all wonderful lands of monsters,
- ↑ This consideration, however, will not excuse the monstrous fable of St Ursula, in which the numbers are so exaggerated as far to pass the boundary which separates the sublime from the ridiculous.
