impression of refinement, by the mere harmony of their composition have attained dignity and elevation, and avoided the appearance of meanness. Such among many others are Philistus, Aristophanes occasionally, Euripides almost always.3 Thus when Heracles says, after the murder of his children,
"I'm full of woes, I have no room for more,"[1]
the words are quite common, but they are made sublime by being cast in a fine mould. By changing their position you will see that the poetical quality of Euripides depends more on his arrangement than on his thoughts.4 Compare his lines on Dirce dragged by the bull—
"Whatever crossed his path,Caught in his victim's form, he seized, and dragging
Oak, woman, rock, now here, now there, he flies."[2]
The circumstance is noble in itself, but it gains in vigour because the language is disposed so as not to hurry the movement, not running, as it were, on wheels, because there is a distinct stress on each word, and the time is delayed, advancing slowly to a pitch of stately sublimity.
XLI
Nothing so much degrades the tone of a style as an effeminate and hurried movement in the language,
