would have been the purpose of Aeschylus, nor to embellish it, as might have been the purpose of Sophocles, but to criticize it, to expose it as fundamentally untrue and immoral, before an audience who were well acquainted with the general opinions of the author, well aware that from the circumstances of the case innuendo was the only way in which those opinions could be dramatically expressed, well accustomed to apprehend them in this form, and predisposed by mental and moral temper not merely to be content with such a mode of expression, but to regard it as the best possible condition for intellectual art and intellectual pleasure.
At Athens in the age of Euripides the relations of the drama, and of tragedy in particular, to other functions of society were so different from those in our experience, indeed so contrary to our experience, that although the facts are familiar, it is not easy to bear them always effectively in mind. In our own country particularly the theatre is not, rarely has been, and never has been since many generations, of general importance as an organ of public opinion or public instruction. Such are our habits and traditions that even now, when liberty of expression in almost all forms is established as a panacea and has perhaps produced some disease, a drama, which was designed to set forth and recommend a particular opinion on some topic agitating the public mind at the moment, would probably not be popular; and whether it were likely to be popular or not, it would not obtain a license. And in particular with regard to one class of subject, the most widely and deeply interesting of all, there is and long has been in England a rule, sanctioned by sentiment as much as by law, that it may be discussed everywhere and almost without limit, except on the stage, from which it is rigidly excluded: and this is the subject of religion. Nor do these restrictions excite impatience even in the most determined agitators. When methods of publication, more efficient in the present conditions of life than a play could be though it were performed by order of Parliament at the public expense in every theatre of London, are open to any man whose opinions and style are intrinsically capable of attracting attention; and when religion, orthodox and unorthodox, is propagated without restraint in ways devised by itself for its own ends; it is not very
