A large audience collected last night, in Sever 11 to hear Mr. Lawton's lecture upon the "Medea of Euripides."

The play was first represented in 431 B. C., when it gained the third prize only, being judged inferior to the works of Sophocles and of Euphorion, the son of Aeschylus. This shows the comparative popularity of the authors more than the real literary merits of the pieces.

The Medea, one of the three oldest play of the poet whose dates are known, seems to us a more painful tale than it did to the Athenians. We love children and sympathize with them more than the ancients, who only valued their offspring as a means of perpetuating the family name and traditions. The great attraction of the play lies in the fact that it illustrates the character of the best Greek work.

Although it is true that dramatic art cannot have its highest value except as the expression of contemporary modes of thought, yet there are some canons of universal application. Aristotle tried to formulate these canons, but he had little influence on the drama, as the greatest poet lived before his time. He was himself largely under the influence of the "Oedipus Tyrannus." These canons are the so-called "three unities" of space, time, and action. The strict limitation of the play to one spot is not authorized by Aristotle. The simplicity of the Greek plays, and the few possible changes of scene, rendered extremely difficult by the fact that there was no curtain, limited the Greek dramatists to one place. These conditions also rendered the unity of time necessary, as the events must follow in consecutive order. Aristotle remarks that this unity is only a characteristic of dramatic art, distinguishing it from epic poetry, which had no such limit.

The unity of plot is a very different thing, and it is as important now as it ever was. Every critic must agree with Aristotle, and every art says undertake only one thing at a time. Unity of action, simplicity of design, and subordination of detail are requisites in every tragedy of lasting excellence, whose purpose it is to purify through terror and pity the minds of men."

All these requisites are present in the Medea, which is also comparatively free from the digressions which often mar the work of Euripides. The grouping of the actors on the stage assisted the unity of the piece by directing the attention to the central figure. The plot itself was almost bodily borrowed from the piece of Neophron, but great skill is shown in leading up to the catastrophe. The poet makes us understand the conduct of Medea, although no real sympathy with her unnatural deed is possible. Medea herself was, in the minds of the Athenians, a real and terrible woman, who could no more be explained away as a moon myth than could Xantippe or Aspasia.