his art, make his administration conform to the laws by which he conceives the course of mortal life to be really governed. Nothing that rouses the feelings in the history of mankind is foreign to his scene, but as he is confined by artificial limits, he must hasten the march of events, and compress within a narrow compass what is commonly found diffused over a large space, so that a faithful image of human existence may be concentrated in his mimic sphere. From this sphere however he himself stands aloof. The eye with which he views his microcosm, and the creatures who move in it, will not be one of human friendship, nor of brotherly kindness, nor of parental love; it will be that with which he imagines that the invisible power who orders the destiny of man might regard the world and its doings. The essential character therefore of all dramatic poetry must depend on the poet's religious or philosophical sentiments, on the light in which he contemplates history and life, on the belief he entertains as to the unseen hand that regulates their events.
If any of these remarks should appear questionable as a general proposition, we may at least safely assume their truth as beyond doubt, when they are applied to Sophocles. Not even the most superficial reader of his works can fail to observe, that they are all imprest with a deep religious character, that he takes every opportunity of directing the attention of his audience to an overruling Power, and appears to consider his own most important function to be that of interpreting its decrees. What then was the religion of Sophocles? what was his conception of this Power whom he himself represents in conducting the affairs of his ideal world? On the answer we give to this question must evidently depend our apprehension of the poet's main design, and our enjoyment of the art he has exerted in its execution. Unquestionably the religion of Sophocles was not the religion of Homer, and the light in which he viewed destiny and providence was not that in which they are exhibited by the Homeric poems. In the interval which separated the maturity of epic and dramatic poetry, the human mind had taken some great strides: and men of a vigorous and cultivated intellect could no longer acquiesce in the simple theology of the Homeric age. The dogma which to the hearers of the old bard seemed
