a whole, is so pathetic. The reader feels now, as the spectators doubtless felt at its representation, that it is not because of the rank of the sufferers we sympathise with them. It is not Admetus the king, but Admetus the husband, whom we commiserate: that she is a queen adds nothing to our admiration of the tender and self-devoting Alcestis. Among the faults found with this drama is one that sounds strangely to modern ears. It wrought, say the objectors, upon the feelings of spectators by an exhibition of woe beneath the dignity of the sufferers, who are therefore degraded by the pity excited on their behalf. This seems "hedging kings" with a most preposterous "divinity,"—setting them apart from common humanity by making them void of human affections. If to touch an audience through the medium of household sorrows were a blot in Greek tragedy, it will scarcely be accounted a blemish by modern readers.
The story of the "Alcestis" is founded upon some legend or tradition of northern Greece, probably brought thither from the East. The Fates have marked Admetus, king of Pheræ, in Thessaly, for death. Apollo has prevailed upon the grim sisters to grant him a reprieve on one condition—that he finds a substitute. In the first instance he applies to his father and mother, aged people, but they decline being vicariously sacrificed. His wife Alcestis alone will give her life for his ransom. Apollo does Admetus this good turn because he has himself, when condemned by Jupiter to serve in a mortal's house, been kindly treated by the Pheræan king. When the play opens,
