None, save myself, opposed his will, I dar'd; For this he is condemned to be chained to a rock, which was generally supposed to be on Mount Caucasus, but which schylus seems to place, as the Scholiast observes, in European Scythia, between the Ister and the Tanais : there, within sight of the Euxine Sea, or of the Scythian ocean, he is affixed by force and strength with fetters. forged by Vulcan; and the sufferings, which he endures with unshaken fortitude, with the sympathy of nature and the compassion of all nations, have been thought to exhibit some traces of similitude to those which were foretold in Prophecy, and sustained,—not with indignant reproaches, but with patient submission to God, on the cross. Such com • Line 235. 241. εγὼ δὲ τολμῆς ἐξελευσάμην βροτοις. There seems to be an error in the word τολμῆς. + Stanley supposes that he was chained near the Palus Mæotis, and that Caucasus was the scene of the second puLishment. : L. 396-432. parisons, alluded to with all reverence, may serve to assist our enquiries in an investigation of the proofs of a remote connection between sacred and prophane writings; but they are too precarious, if not too presumptuous, in character, to authorize any peremptory conclusion. Under such restraints it may be observed further, that the daughter of Inachus hails Prometheus as the deliverer of the whole world, and Oceanus urges to him, in a strain of censure, that he had been always regardless of himself, and preferred the interests of mankind to his own. A character then is marked out by the poet, as endued with divine attributes and incapable of extinction, who, having compassion on the race of men, whom he beheld living in the constant fear of death, determined to deliver them, and having succeeded in his design, is condemned on that account by Jove to undergo the most dreadful and continued agonies, amidst horrors of great sublimity, which he sustains with insurmountable constancy, admitting that Jove challenged Justice to himself, and foreseeing that • Ω κοινός ωφέλημα θιπλοῖσιν. Line 614. a time would come, when his wrath being appeased, he should eagerly return into the bond of friendship with him*, which eventually took place when, as Eschylus appears to have described in another drama now lost, Prometheus was delivered and admitted. into Heaven. A learned and ingenious friend of the author, who considers the character of Prometheus as that of a Divine mediator, remarks, that his bringing down fire to men, who had fallen under the wrath of Jupiter, seems to have a reference to the first institution of sacrifice by fire after the Fall, which there is reason to believe was revealed to man, that it might be typical of the great atonement. The account, which Hesiod' gives of Prometheus having deceived Jove by giving him bones covered with fat, instead of flesh, in the division of an ox, might possibly bear reference to circumstances connected with sacrifice. Whatever conformity, however, may be found to exist between the dramatic character and the sacred original, there can be no ground of analogy to warrant the suppo Line 186-192. + L. 493. 530. ewy». L. 585–360. sition that Prometheus was expressly designed to be a figure of Christ, though the representation of the Grecian poet affords a confession of the grandeur, and an illustration of the excellency of some of those qualities, which shone forth in our Lord. Nevertheless, the character of the Messiah, which was prophetically disclosed to the Jewish nation long before the time of Eschylus, might have afforded the outline of the sketch produced. If we examine the descriptions of the earlier prophets, and particularly those in the xxiid Psalm, and in the lid chapter of Isaiah, we shall find that there is a general groundwork, upon which Eschylus might have formed the story of the sufferings of Prometheus in his character of a mediator; supposing those Sacred Writings to have been known to Eschylus through the medium of a translation, made previously to the Septuagint version. If this supposition be rejected, it must be difficult to frame any satisfactory theory, which can explain the cause of the coincidences. David and Isaiah bave pourtrayed the Messiah as having "a generation "which no man could declare," as having borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, as 66 "smitten of God and afflicted," as being enclosed by the wicked, and as "having his hands and his feet pierced," "as wounded for our transgressions and "bruised for our iniquities," and as "bearing the chastisement of our peace." 66 But further, the reproaches, expressed by Force and Strength, against Prometheus, as being unable to extricate himself from his sufferings, and therefore falsely called a God, have been thought to bear some resemblance to the mockeries with which the chief priests and multitude reviled Christ, saying, "he "saved others, himself he cannot save. These, if not accidental, may also be supposed to have resulted from some acquaintance with the Prophetic descriptions uttered in early times by the Psalmist and other inspired writers, with respect to those persecutors, who were to look upon our Saviour, when exposed to agony and derision*; they may serve to raise additional ground of presumption of the existence of some early versions of the Scriptures or of such colloquial intercourse with the Jews, as might have afforded Eschylus a knowledge of those descrip * See Psalm xxii. 7, 8. 13, 14. 16, 17, &c, |