proof, that this alternately extolled and ridiculed unity (as ignorantly
ridiculed as extolled) was grounded on no essential principle of reason,
but arose out of circumstances which the poet could not remove, and
therefore took up into the form of the drama, and co-organized it with
all the other parts into a living whole.

The Greek tragedy may rather be compared to our serious opera than to
the tragedies of Shakspeare; nevertheless, the difference is far greater
than the likeness. In the opera all is subordinated to the music, the
dresses and the scenery;--the poetry is a mere vehicle for articulation,
and as little pleasure is lost by ignorance of the Italian language, so
is little gained by the knowledge of it. But in the Greek drama all was
but as instruments and accessaries to the poetry; and hence we should
form a better notion of the choral music from the solemn hymns and
psalms of austere church music than from any species of theatrical
singing. A single flute or pipe was the ordinary accompaniment; and it
is not to be supposed, that any display of musical power was allowed to
obscure the distinct hearing of the words. On the contrary, the evident
purpose was to render the words more audible, and to secure by the
elevations and pauses greater facility of understanding the poetry. For
the choral songs are, and ever must have been, the most difficult part
of the tragedy; there occur in them the most involved verbal compounds,
the newest expressions, the boldest images, the most recondite
allusions. Is it credible that the poets would, one and all, have been
thus prodigal of the stores of art and genius, if they had known that in
the representation the whole must have been lost to the audience,--at a
time too, when the means of after publication were so difficult, and
expensive, and the copies of their works so slowly and narrowly
circulated?