contending for, being no more than a goat or skin of wine, which was
given to the happy poet who acquitted himself best in the task assigned
him.

From such small beginnings Tragedy and Comedy took their rise; and like
(as the best writers on these subjects tell us) every other production
of human art, extremely contemptible; that wide and deep stream, which
flows with such strength and rapidity through cultivated Greece, took
its rise from a small and inconsiderable fountain, which hides itself in
the recesses of antiquity, and is almost buried in oblivion; the name
alone remains to give us some light into its original nature, and to
inform us, that Tragedy and Comedy, like every other species of poetry,
owe their birth to Religion.

Appropriately does Horace observe:--

"Nor was the flute at first with silver bound,
Nor rivalled emulous the trumpet's sound;
Few were its notes, its forms were simply plain,
Yet not unuseful was its feeble strain,
To aid the chorus, and their songs to raise,
Filling the little theatre with ease,
To which a thin and pious audience came
Of frugal manners, and unsullied fame."




CHAPTER III.