The sacrifice of Agamemnon in Aulis, as told in the opening of the 'Iliad,' connects the tree and serpent worship together, and the wood of the sacred plane tree under which the sacrifice was made was preserved in the temple of Diana as a holy relic so late, according to Pausanias, as the second century of the Christian era."

[Footnote 30: Humboldt's translation of the Agamemnon of Æschylus.]

Racine has several passages in his tragedies which perhaps have rather too much naiveté for the dignity of the cothurnus; for instance in the answer of Agamemnon to Achille in the tragedy of Iphigénie: Puisque vous le savez, pourquoi le demander?

Agamemnon at last consents, on condition that some other prize of honor be given to himthough, as Thersites taunts him (II, 226-228), his tents are already full of captive women, among whom he always has had first choice.

If, for instance, we examine the address of Clytemnestra to Agamemnon on his return, or the description of the seven Argive chiefs, by the principles of dramatic writing, we shall instantly condemn them as monstrous.

She was the concubine of Achillês, but when Achillês bullied Agamemnon for not giving Chryse'is to her father, who offered a ransom for her, Agamemnon turned upon him and said he would let Chryseis go, but should take Briseis instead.

" "The Girton girl of ten years ago," said Bernardine, "was a, sombre, spectacled person, carelessly and dowdily dressed, who gave herself up to wisdom, and despised every one who did not know the Agamemnon by heart.

"August 3, eleven o'clock A.M. I am still confined, most of the time on my back in my berth, quite to my annoyance in one respect, to wit, that I am unable to be on board the Agamemnon with Dr. Whitehouse to assist at the experiments.

There was no one chieftain among the Greeks who called out universal homage any more than there was in the camp of Agamemnon before the walls of Troy.

The site of Polyrhenia, connected in tradition with the return of Agamemnon from Troy, was one of the finest Pelasgic ruins I have ever seen when I first visited it, but on this visit I could hardly find the locality, and of the splendid polygonal wall I saw in 1865 not a stone remained.