allusions which he heard from time to time;—a boyhood so passed must surely give a solemnity and earnestness to the whole nature of the man. And certainly Æschylus, if we may believe his biographers, was from an early age haunted by solemn imaginations, and by a consciousness of the presence of the gods. It is said that he told this story of himself. Once, when quite a child, he was left in a vineyard to guard or watch the grapes, and, tired with the sun, he lay down and slept; and he saw coming through the rows of vines the flushed face of Bacchus, merry, yet terrible; and Bacchus bade him give himself henceforth to the tragic art. On this anecdote we cannot place much reliance—it sounds like a later fabrication; but we may well believe that a "fine frenzy" was early seen in the eyes of Æschylus, and that his character was early marked by a fiery earnestness and pride.
He was born of noble family, and in after-years, when he saw changes passing over the society of Athens, by which the prestige of nobility was lowered, and new men were helped to rise to the highest offices in the state, his pride of birth showed itself in a spirit of haughty reserve and stern conservatism. But in this contempt for the rising citizens of his day there was at least one great truth implied; a truth, that is, very needful for the time in which he lived. Love of moderation and due proportion, and a hatred of the vulgarity of excess—this, the characteristic principle of Greek art in all its branches, was beginning to make itself felt and consciously accepted; and this is the very principle which new men, in every age, are
