10.) His style, indeed, is exceedingly energetic, and his works abound in bold and unusual metaphors. His tragedies, in respect to plan, are extremely simple. There is little action or plot ; and every thing is brouglo about in the most common and natural manner. He ex hibits only great characters, and seems to wish rather to excite horror and admiration, than to call forth the milder emotions. The Greek scholiasts relate some singular stories concerning the effects produced upon the spectators, by the representation of certain parts of his tragedies. Among other things we are told, that at the first representation of his Eumenides, several chil dren were thrown into fits, and died of terror ; and that some women were so violently agitated, " ut Osas oportuerit in ipso theatro parere." Our limits will not permit us to enter upon an ana lysis of each of the tragedies of this author. The charac ter of Prometheus, in the piece which bears that name, is strongly drawn, as is likewise that of Eteocles, in " The Seven Heroes of Thebes." The speech of Cas
sandra, in his tragedy of Agamemnon, is said to have been considered by the ancients as his The modesty of lEschylns seems to have been equal to his merit. He called his tragedies, " Fragments from the splendid Banquets of Homer," (.-lthi n. lib. viii. ;) and if his epitaph was really written by himself, as Athemeus asset ts, (lib. xiv.,) he considered it as more glorious to have contributed to the victory at Mara thon, than to ha?e excelled others by the superiority of his genius.
An admirable edition of the tragedies of /Eschylus was printed at Glasgow in 1794, under the direction of the late learned Mr Porson, who has done more than any other editor to restore the text of iEschylus. Ano ther excellent edition appeared in 1805 at Leipsic, w ith annotations by Fred. H. Bothe of Magdeburg. (z) lESCHYNONIENE, or the bastard sensitive plant, genus of plants of the class Diadelphia, and order De candria. See BOTANY. (w)