of the Drama to "the great choral compositions uniting the attractions
of music and action to those of a lofty poetry, which formed the
favourite entertainment of the Dorian cities." This, he says, appears
to have been the germ out of which, by the introduction of a new
element, the recitation of a performer who assumed a character and
perhaps from the first shifted his mask, so as to exhibit the outlines
of a simple story in a few scenes parted by the intervening song of
the Chorus, Thespis and his successors unfolded the Attic Tragedy. Of
the further development of the Drama in the age of Pericles, Thirlwall
says:--

"The drama was the branch of literature which peculiarly signalised
the age of Pericles; and it belongs to the political, no less than to
the literary, history of these times, and deserves to be considered in
both points of view. The steps by which it was brought through a
series of innovations to the form which it presents in its earliest
extant remains, are still a subject of controversy among antiquarians;
and even the poetical character of the authors by whom these changes
were effected, and of their works, is involved in great uncertainty.
We have reason to believe that it was no want of merit, or of absolute
worth, which caused them to be neglected and forgotten, but only the
superior attraction of the form which the drama finally assumed. Of
Phrynichus in particular, the immediate predecessor of Aeschylus, we
are led to conceive a very favourable opinion, both by the manner in
which he is mentioned by the ancients who were acquainted with his
poems, and by the effect which it is recorded to have produced upon
his audience. It is clear that Aeschylus, who found him in undisputed
possession of the public favour, regarded him as a worthy rival, and
was in part stimulated by emulation to unfold the capacities of their
common art by a variety of new inventions. These, however, were so