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THE

TRAGEDIES

OF

EURIPIDES.

TRANSLATED

BY R. POTTER.

VOL. I

OXFORD,

PRINTED BY W. BAXTER:

For G. and W. B. WHITTAKER; LONGMAN and Co.; BALDWIN and Co.;
T. HAMILTON; OGLE and Co; SIMPKIN and MARSHALL; and

R. PRIESTLEY: J. PARKER, Oxford: and DEIGHTON

and Sons, Cambridge.

151

1823

V. I

PREFACE.

Al

1823 v.l

MAIN

THE pleasure which we receive from the admired writings of antiquity, in a manner allies our minds to the minds of the illustrious writers; we contract a love. for them, and interest ourselves in every circumstance that interested them. This affection, which arises from the love of excellence natural to the well-disposed mind, induces us to enquire after even the minutest particulars of their lives and fortunes; and Homer, poor and blind, is not less the object of our attention than his hero Achilles. The life of a retired scholar cannot indeed be supposed to present us with great and striking events; but it may convey more useful instructions, such as come nearer to our own business and bosoms; it may encourage the man of genius to exert his talents so as to render himself agreeable and useful to his fellow-citizens, to procure their esteem while he lives, and to preserve his name from oblivion, so dreaded by the generous mind. Few of the great writers of ancient times have a juster claim to this attention than the virtuous, the modest, the amiable Poet, with whose remaining works the English reader is now presented.

The prodigious armament with which Xerxes invaded Greece is well known: when he was advancing towards Attica, to revenge the defeat of his father's forces at Marathon, the Athenians, by the advice of Themistocles, retired with their effects to Salamis,

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