heading their respective followers, are still contending, and Cressida herself does not appear again after these words. The far-famed Helen of Troy is merely presented as an incarnation of enchanting beauty, without either the talents of Cleopatra, or the virtues of Cordelia, Juliet, or Desdemona. In the Iliad Homer presents her during the siege meekly deploring to the old Trojan king Priam that she has been the cause of the Trojan war, and of so much misery to both Greeks and Trojans.

"Before thy presence, father, I appear

With conscious shame and reverential fear.
Ah! had I died ere to these walls I fled,
False to my country, and my nuptial bed.

My brothers, friends, and daughter left behind,
False to them and to Paris only kind!

For this I mourn, till grief or dire disease

Should waste the form whose crime it was to please."

-Iliad, Book III. (Pope's Translation).

Lord Derby's version of this beautiful passage is truer to the original, but not in the same eloquent English.

"With reverence, dearest father, and with shame

I look on thee, oh! would that I had died
That day when hither with thy son I came,
And left my husband, friends, and darling child,
And all the lov'd companions of my youth,
That I died not, with grief I pine away."

These beautiful, pathetic words might well indicate a heroine. But in this play neither Helen nor Cressida is rendered very interesting, and, in fact, occupy in it a rather secondary position. Shakespeare chiefly delights in describing the wisdom, valour, and knowledge of human nature, which he attributes, perhaps rather more than they deserve, to the chief Greek and Trojan leaders. In their magnificent words and speeches lies the chief value of this play. Yet even their grand ideas we owe to Shakespeare, and can hardly be proved as altogether confirmed by all that is recorded of these heroes, however brave and sagacious they may have been. In examining classic records and collating them with Shakespeare's language, Dr Johnson's words, when comparing Pope's translation

of the Iliad with its original, may perhaps to some extent be applied:

'Many readers of the English Iliad when they have been touched with some unexpected beauty of the lighter kind, have tried to enjoy it in the original, where, alas! it was not to be found, but to have added can be no great crime, if nothing be taken away." 1

Most historical personages in Shakespeare's plays have indeed more reason to be grateful, than dissatisfied, with his attractive representations of their words and deeds. It will always be a cause of wonder how Shakespeare, living in political if not social obscurity, passing his time between the London theatres and Stratford-on-Avon, and who, as far as it is known, was never out of England, was yet able to describe classic and historical personages as naturally as if he had known them, or discovered some secret correspondence revealing their true characters. Neither profound learning, travelling, or acquaintance with distinguished people of his own time fell to the lot of William Shakespeare. He rather resembles his exquisite description of Cardinal Wolsey:

"Not propp'd by ancestry whose grace,

Chalks successors their way, neither allied
To eminent assistants, but spider-like
Out of his self-drawing web, he gives us note,
The force of his own merit makes his way."

-Henry VIII., Act I.

Shakespeare's knowledge of men was evidently not due to much learning, travelling, nor to distinguished friends. It was, in fact, one of the most remarkable exceptions ever known to all those rules of general education, and social advantage, to which most celebrated men "amid their brethren mortal" have owed their greatness in all ages and countries. In this play Hector may perhaps be considered as the real hero. He does not indeed utter the wise reflections of Nestor and of Ulysses, but in bravery and generosity he is superior to either friends or foes. Æneas is not very closely described, though

1 Johnson's "Life of Pope."

often mentioned, yet it was his romantic destiny to plant the fugitive Trojans in Italy, while their descendants were to become the Roman conquerors of all those lands, which in their time were supposed to comprise the whole civilised world. The band of Trojan fugitives accompanying the defeated hero in his famous voyage, first to North Africa and then to Italy, so beautifully described by Virgil, were thus alleged-though the assertion may not be exactly capable of proof-to be the ancestry of that martial yet philanthropic race, whose mission was to inform and enlighten as well as to conquer. In their wide and varied empire was included Judea, in which comparatively small province was fated to arise the prevailing religion of modern times.

Before its almost miraculous diffusion the Paganism of Troy, Greece, and Rome, together with that of northern Europe, practically vanished completely. Thus the faiths of Jupiter and of Odin, whose votaries once comprised some of the bravest and wisest of men, have for many centuries not retained, as far as can be known, a single believer. Though Homer and Virgil describe the Pagan deities as taking an active part, and often opposed to each other in the Trojan war and in subsequent human history, and though their existence and power were evidently believed in by some of the wisest of men, there would appear no very precise historical statement or positive allegation of their being ever seen by mortals. They appear chiefly, if not entirely, in poetry, as neither Greek or Roman historians and philosophers announce their actual appearance in this world as historically proved, or at least, not in a circumstantial manner. They would seem the invisible though trusted and revered creations of the human intellect alone.1 In Troilus and Cressida

1 "Whence the gods severally sprang, whether or no they had all existed from eternity-these are questions of which the Greeks knew nothing until the other day. Homer and Hesiod were the first to give the gods their epithets, to allot them their several offices and occupations and describe their forms, and they lived but four hundred years before my time, as I believe."-"Herodotus," Book II., on "Egypt." (Rawlinson's Translation.)

neither the Greeks nor the Trojans, though believing in the same faith, make many appeals to their gods.

Their blessing or favour is never implored with the intense earnestness with which they were probably addressed at this time by their contending votaries. Shakespeare, in fact, rather avoids making much allusion to the heathen mythology throughout this play, though among the combatants it was likely a theme of constant interest and anxiety. Throughout the modern civilised world the religions of Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia have long been viewed as mere fables, unworthy of the least confidence, yet the history, poetry, and philosophy of Pagan Greece and Rome remain still the study and admiration of the most learned men at the present time. The famous siege of Troy, so poetically celebrated in Homer, is again seen, as it were, only in glimpses throughout Troilus and Cressida. Yet in these glimpses the spirit, wisdom, and valour of the mighty dead are again recalled to actual life, interest and glory, by the genius of England's greatest poet. The combination of sound common-sense, knowledge of character, and power of fancy is among the chief merits of the immortal Iliad. The story of Troilus and Cressida which Shakespeare has chosen to dramatise is only one, and by no means the most interesting of the events during that extraordinary siege. The real Troilus was slain by Achilles, who seems to have killed more Trojan leaders than any of his Greek comrades succeeded in doing.

Troilus, the hero of this play is by no means among its most interesting characters. He is far inferior to his brother Hector, and to his Greek foes, Achilles, Nestor, and Ulysses. Agamemnon, the Greek king, is also made of less interest than these four chiefs. He moves about a stolid figure, gives orders, and is obeyed, but none of his words equal those of Achilles, Nestor, and Ulysses in real wisdom or eloquence. This play seems a rather unfinished description of a most eventful and stirring time. At its close Troy still holds out, and all is left

in battle and confusion, though the Greeks are evidently winning all along the line. It is certainly a brilliant sketch of grand scenes and of grand characters. Shakespeare displays this graphic play like a picture, ending it amid exciting undecided events. The wise chiefs Ulysses and Nestor, the gay Paris, the stern Achilles, and the heroic yet merciful Hector, present a strange contrast to the comic if not cowardly Pandarus, and to the grotesque, insolent, and odious Thersites. These personages are placed before an English reading public as if many of their words and deeds had been revealed by an acquaintance; yet only a very brief part of their lives is shown. We see Greeks and Trojans alive, full of spirit, wisdom, and energy, but withdrawn from view, in the midst, or at least before the end of their memorable contest. The last scene shows Æneas lamenting Hector's death, foreseeing the ruin of Troy, and anticipating some vague future revenge on the Greeks which in process of time may to some extent have been fulfilled according to Roman belief in their Trojan descent and in the triumph of their empire over Greece. Troilus finally appears upbraiding Pandarus, Cressida's uncle, who has failed to reconcile them, though in reality he was a brave warrior.

Troilus:

"Hence broker-lackey! ignominy and shame

Pursue thy life and live aye with thy name.”

[Exit.

Pandarus, who, though made partly comic in this play, was really a gallant warrior, exclaims when alone:

"A goodly medicine for my aching bones!"

fantastic lines

and then ends this play with some
composed evidently to amuse an English audience:

"O world, world, world! thus is the poor agent despised!
Some two months hence my will shall here be made:

It should be now, but that my fear is this,

Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.

Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases;
And at that time bequeath you my diseases."

[Exit.

These lines form a rather strange, if not grotesque

B