maturity; but, while we miss the ripened judgment and the sure touch of the practised hand, which were developed later, we already find the firstfruits of genius, the lyric gift, and the imaginative faculty, in the lovely nocturne chanted by the sentinel-chorus (527–37, and 546–56), in the picturesque description of the night-march of an army through the forest, and in the weird dream of the charioteer.
The Cyclops I have omitted. It did not come strictly within the scope of the task I had set myself, the translation of the Tragedies; and the English reader has already the version by Shelley, which is at least free from that frigidity which is apt to be the snare of the classical translator.
I have to express my grateful acknowledgments to Dr. Sandys and to Prof. Tyrrell for most kind assistance in revising the Bacchanals.
