to mention how unseasonable such pride would have been, when Ajax was actually supplicating a favour to which, though little for Jupiter to grant, he himself attached great importance, and how inconsistent with the reverence exprest for Jupiter's majesty in the address: "Thou first, O Jove"—it is clear that the words in question contain nothing more than a touching allusion to the extremity in which he was now placed, when the only thing left for him to desire of Jupiter, was that his body might not be deprived of the rites of burial, Mr Campbell could scarcely have overlooked this, if he had not been prepossessed with the common opinion about the character of Ajax, as exhibited in the previous speech, which he too considers as a feint, and endeavours to explain, but without perceiving the main difficulties which the supposition involves. He sees nothing in the tragedy but an exhibition of "the despair and suicide of a proud soldier, who has lived but for martial honor, and cannot survive the loss of it." Though we think this conception of the subject so inadequate as to miss what is most essential in the poet's design, we must do Mr C. the justice to observe, that he has shewn a lively sense of some of the beauties of the play, which is the more meritorious, as we learn from him that the English translators have been insensible to them. He complains with great reason that Sophocles should have fallen into the hands of persons so little capable of relishing him, as not even to be struck with the sublimity of the opening scene of the Ajax: though, since such perceptions are the gift of nature, we do not understand why they are called illiberal critics. We collect however one rather melancholy inference from this fact, and from Mr Campbell's lectures: that the study of the poet's works with a view to the pleasures of the imagination, has not kept pace with the diligence bestowed on them as objects of philological criticism.
Most critics have felt a great difficulty in explaining the reasons which induced Sophocles to protract the action after the death of Ajax, with which, according to modern notions the interest expires. What has been said on this subject has for the most part been proposed in the language of apology, and in a tone which now and then raises a suspicion that the advocate is not thoroughly convinced of the goodness of his cause. Thus Hermann faintly defends the concluding scenes
