and the use of the old Hebrew expression adopted in Acts,

per ent

πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν, being in substance the same as the προς κέντρα κώλον ἐκτενεῖς of Æschylus; and "Οργης νοσούσης εἰσὶν ιατροι λόγοι 13

Solomon's maxim.

He says that it is highly probable that Eschylus had been in Egypt, whither it was so much the fashion for Athenian gentlemen to make a tour, and that he had there found and read some of the Hebrew history and poetry; and that, struck with the magnificent language, and the mys terious sublimity of the prophetic allusions to an expected Messiah, he introduced it into his piece.

"But," said Dr. Von II. "what is the meaning of Hercules? We must take the play as it is; and what can you do with Hercules ?"

I said I thought those commentators mistaken who interpret the prophecy addressed to Io about her descendant, to mean that he was to be the dethroner of his father.

Professor. You are quite right; it is a strange confounding of persons. Prometheus, in fact, expressly distinguishes, at the request of the chorus, between the two revelations he was to make: he tells Io that her descendant was to loose him from the rock, and he then after her departure informs the chorus that there is to be a power that shall overthrow the new usurper. His language appears to me essentially Hebraic, and imitated from that of the Psalms :

*Ος δὴ κεραύνου κρείσσον' ευρήσει φλογὰ

Βροντῆς θ' ὑπερβάλλοντα καρτερὸν κτύπον.

Dr. Von H. It is like one of the descriptions of Divine Power in the Psalms. But your κέντρα κώλον ἐκτενεῖς, which you quote as a Hebrew saying, is used in very similar words by both Pindar and Euripides.

Professor. Euripides borrowed it from Eschylus, because it became a fashionable phrase. Eschylus uses it again in Agamemnon. (He passed over the Doctor's observation of its being used by Pindar unnoticed-it did not suit the course of his argument.)

Another Oriental allusion Bryant has already pointed out,-the description of the daughters of Phorcys in Io's tale, the Canaanitish priestesses of the race of Ammon, whose temple was in the depths of Africa; swan-like, because the swan was their badge; and one-eyed, because of the hieroglyphic eye on their temple.

Dr. Von H. Aschylus did not find this in the Hebrew poets.

Professor. No-I only instance it to shew how deeply he had studied Egyptian learning, to adapt the story of Isis to that of Io. He had in this piece, and I think in all his dramas, a far profounder meaning than the mere embodying of national traditions. He was a diligent reader of Homer, and had been early impressed with the sublime expressions in the Iliad, which denote that Fate was superior to Jove. Prometheus makes use of almost the same words; at least Eschylus had the words of Homer in his mind when he makes Prometheus say,

τέχνη δ' ανάγκης ἀσθενεστέρα μακρῷ :

and to the inquiry of the chorus, τίς οὖν ἀνάγκης ἐστὶν οιακοστρόφος ; he says, Μοίραι τριμόρφοι, μνήμονες τ' Ερίννες ; and the chorus, τούτων ἄρα Ζεύς ἐστιν ἀσθενέστερος. Struck as Homer had been before him with the inconsistency of their theogony, he felt there was an unknown God, and

to his altar are all his works dedicated. He introduced his creed mysteriously veiled in the historic fables of his country. He gathered together from the far East, and from his native traditions, all that was poetical and dramatic, and he produced them in the never-dying forms which have come down to us. The prophetic denunciation of Jupiter's downfall is the belief of Eschylus that the false religion of his country would give way to a true one, put into the mouth of Prometheus as the expression of his anger and vengeance against the Usurper for his injustice to himself. And so artfully is this done that it passed at the time of the representation as in character with the personage speaking, as a part of the dramatic effect. And so little has it been understood in modern times, that many commentators have considered Prometheus as a reformer, and admired his republican anti-monarchical principles ! Whereas he is speaking as a theological metaphysician. He had found in the Hebrew prophets the continual allusion to the One, the Son of God that was to appear; he most ingeniously hid his discovery in the hieroglyphic of Jove and his descendants. The interpretation of which was ingeniously made to be, that the prophecy alluded only, as Pindar tells it, to Achilles; and Prometheus, it was supposed, kept the secret, and held the threat impending over his persecutor's head, till he forced him to send Hercules to kill the eagle and set him free, and then he declared to whom the prophecy alluded; and Thetis was married to Peleus, that the son she was to bear might with impunity be greater than his more mortal father, as was fulfilled in Achilles. This is supposed to have formed the subject of the drama, now lost, of Prometheus Unbound; and if it did, it is in strict accordance with my theory. Dr. Von H. I do not see how you can prove that; the two pieces would form such a complete whole, and would be in such perfect keeping, and so altogether Grecian in the theology.

Professor. But I have said that Eschylus was obliged to disguise his purpose, and the more so as we are told that he was accused of impiety. It is therefore evident that he was, as I suppose him to have been, a despiser of the fantastic religion of Athens, and, as I think I prove, the supporter of a purer faith. He had, as I say, been in Sicily and Egypt.

Dr. Von H. In what we are told of his life, however, it was only at the end of it that he went to Sicily.

Professor. That was only his second visit; we have such very meagre hints of his history, that we do much more wisely by making it out from what we really possess his writings. He had evidently travelled; and his going to Sicily for the rest of his life when he left Athens, would have been very unlikely if he had not been previously acquainted with Hiero. He had been in Sicily and in Egypt in his early life, and there he had found and studied the Hebrew writers; and he returned to Athens with the strong powers of poetry within him, and the deep impression of that magnificent poetry which he had been studying; and he left his earnest conviction that the religion of his countrymen was false, in the prophetic words which he could not venture to give as his own, or in the definite meaning that they bore, but couched in Pagan form, and in words uttered by one whose tale was a mystery. He produced and left to his country one of the noblest dramas ever constructed, and, had they been able to penetrate it, a distinct forewarning that one mightier than Jove should arise and hurl him from his throne, and with him all the inferior gods, as typified in Hermes, the messenger of the Usurper-meaning that the whole theogony should perish; a prophecy which, as it was borrowed from the really inspired

Prophet, has been duly fulfilled. We may therefore consider the Prometheus as a sort of Heathen scholiast upon the sacred writings; a view which gives a surpassing interest to even its splendid dramatic poetry. And in the Agamemnon, too, we have another proof of his introduction of Hebrew learning the sacrifice of Iphigenia is so evidently that of Isaac by Abraham paganised, that we can hardly doubt that the one was taken from the other.

(To be continued.)

NOTICES OF ITALIAN POETS, No. II.

BY H. F. CARY, TRANSLATOR OF DANTE.

LUIGI PULCI.