Add to these features a portrait-like truth of character,--not so far
indeed as that a 'bona fide' individual should be described or imagined,
but yet so that the features which give interest and permanence to the
class should be individualized. The old tragedy moved in an ideal
world,--the old comedy in a fantastic world. As the entertainment, or
new comedy, restrained the creative activity both of the fancy and the
imagination, it indemnified the understanding in appealing to the
judgment for the probability of the scenes represented. The ancients
themselves acknowledged the new comedy as an exact copy of real life.
The grammarian, Aristophanes, somewhat affectedly exclaimed:--"O Life
and Menander! which of you two imitated the other?" In short the form of
this species of drama was poetry; the stuff or matter was prose. It was
prose rendered delightful by the blandishments and measured motions of
the muse. Yet even this was not universal. The mimes of Sophron, so
passionately admired by Plato, were written in prose, and were scenes
out of real life conducted in dialogue. The exquisite Feast of Adonis
([Greek (transliterated): Surakousiai ae Ad'oniazousai]) in Theocritus,
we are told, with some others of his eclogues, were close imitations of
certain mimes of Sophron--free translations of the prose into
hexameters.

It will not be improper, in this place, to make a few remarks on the
remarkable character and functions of the chorus in the Greek tragic
drama.

The chorus entered from below, close by the orchestra, and there, pacing
to and fro during the choral odes, performed their solemn measured
dance. In the centre of the 'orchestra', directly over against the
middle of the 'scene', there stood an elevation with steps in the shape
of a large altar, as high as the boards of the 'logeion' or moveable