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Index to Volume I
Venoni, or, The Novice of St. Mark’s
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| Vol. I. | MARCH 1810. | No. 3. |
Æschylus and Shakspeare have each been styled the father of thedrama of his country: yet their claims to this distinction stand on verydifferent grounds. Æschylus laid the plan and foundation of the Greciantragedy and built upon it; but to his successor belongs the glory ofimproving upon his invention. Shakspeare raised the drama of his countryat once to the utmost degree of perfection: succeeding poets have beenable to do nothing more than walk in the path trod by him, at an immensedistance, and endeavour to copy but without equalling hisperfections.
The general admiration in which Æschylus was held, gave birth to aherd of imitators, among whom were sons and nephews of his own; but as,like most imitators, they could do little more than mimic his defectswithout reaching his excellencies, they served only as a foil to set offthe lustre of his great successor Sophocles, who, while yet his scholar,aspired to be his competitor, and gained the preeminence at the age oftwenty-five.
190Sophocles was born four hundred andninety-seven years before the birth of Christ, and at an early agerendered himself, like his master Æschylus, conspicuous by his superiortalents in war and in poetry. It happened, when Sophocles was not yetfive and twenty, that the remains of Theseus were brought from Scyros toAthens, where festivals and games were made in honour of that heroicmonarch, as well as to commemorate the taking of that island: amongthose a yearly contest was instituted for the palm in tragedy. Sophoclesbecame a candidate, and though there were many competitors, and amongthem Æschylus himself, he bore away the prize. The fondness of the