32. It will be observed that in the following chapters there is little reference to the fragments, which I have already mentioned as of great number and importance. This is to be justified by the consideration that, though vital in considering Euripides as a poet and a philosopher, these fragments are too short and detached to help us in our estimate of his dramatic genius, to which we must now confine ourselves. The remains of the Phaethon are indeed considerable, but give us no idea of the plot of the play, and though part of the plot of the Philoctetes is preserved, it is only a prose paraphrase, which conceals from us the poet's treatment of his subject. The fragments are, in fact, beautiful isolated thoughts, or even famous speeches, or verses of choral songs, and as such are delightful reading. They have occupied many poets and critics. Hartung in his large work on Euripides, Valckenaer in his celebrated Diatribe, and many English poets in stray moments have turned their attention to this rich collection of scattered wisdom. A pleasant chapter in Mr. Symonds' Greek Poets is devoted to these and other fragments of the tragic poets. Now, too, they are accessible in a collected form either in Dindorf's Poetæ Scenici, in Nauck's edition, the older praiseworthy attempts being very incomplete. Woodhull translated all those known in his day (1787) in the appendix to his complete Euripides. But in the present work I have only used them as materials for the estimate of the poet in the second chapter, all detailed discussion of single beauties or stray thoughts in his works being out of the question.
