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dexterous they appear in its use, and the more susceptible of its influence. Behaviour, the extravagance of insipidity in itself, became, having this intention, informed with meaning, and capable of defence. Instances of this kind, the Res Gesta, are not infrequent in either sacred or secular authors. All, in the management of it, is advised, sustained, consistent. It is not Ajax butchering the herds, nor Xerxes lashing the waves: nothing is wanton or idle. It is the excess and exuberance of the poetic feeling. It is its own congenial method of notifying instruction, and perhaps warning. If a penitent nation drew water and poured it out before their Deity on the day of their fast, it showed their sense that tears of grief should thus copiously flow. If a man walked bare-foot, it might be to express the utter destitution and shame to which captive kingdoms should be reduced. If another continued for many days to eat his bread by weight and drink his water by measure, it might pre-intimate the approaching visitation of famine. To set a little child in the midst of an assembly, might aptly subserve the inculcation of simplicity and meekness. To bind oneself with the girdle of a friend, might denote the certainty of his being cast into bonds and prisons. To rend the garment might image grief or horror. To plunge a mill-stone into the midst of the sea, might forebode the sudden and total catastrophe of some people or system. Passing from these well-known descriptive acts and foreshadowing imitations of the Hebrews, we may seek similar allusive, sensible, deportment, "the living drollery," excellent dumb discourse, in the Classical writings of Greece and Rome. In the first book of the Iliad, the enraged Achilles having struck with his heavy hand, xega Bagerav, his silverhilted sword, and dashed it back into its scabbard, to prove by this show of behaviour that he will restrain any violence which his tutelary goddess had interdicted,—after having indulged his sallies of scorn and invective against Agamemnon,-proceeds to another deed of the same expressive style. He swears by his sceptre, which he pathetically declares never shall bud more, stripped of its foliage and its bark since it abandoned its stem on the mountains, yet such as the rulers of Achaia bore who were

appointed by Jove to be the preservers of the laws,-and then flings it, inlaid with golden studs, xgu6e015 220161 memaguerov, upon the ground. He thus formally asserts that he breaks from the confederacy of the chiefs, and withdraws from all co-operation with them; not altogether failing to impress upon the Council, the loss incurred by the host, and to the cause, in the secession of that influence of which his sceptre was the image, the casting down of which marked that his allies had no more the confidence, and should possess no more the concert, of Phthia's king and Peleus' son.-Eschylus had offended his countrymen, and especially the guardians of religion, by the freedom of some of his compositions; for this supposed license of impiety he was condemned to death; when his brother Amynias lifted up the stump of a mutilated arm, lost in the battle of Salamis, made his silent appeal, by this patriotic sacrifice, to the mercy of the court, and won the sought-for pardon.-The dagger reeking with the blood of the chaste Lucretia made Brutus powerful, and the shambles-knife, plucked from the bosom of Virginia, could not be waved by her father without the fall of Appius, as certainly as though it had struck him to the heart.-The awful ceremony by which the Roman heroes devoted themselves to the Dii Manes, in battle, was most impressive. Livy, in his eighth and tenth Books, preserves some of its most solemn incidents. Much depended upon the appearance of the dress, and the religious ritual of the self-immolation. The heroic victim covered his head with the prætexta, thrust his hand up under that gown to his chin, and stood upon a spear laid horizontally beneath his feet. The pontiff then dictated to him the formula which he recited. Afterwards, being girded in the Gabine cincture, a garb which the consul always assumed in declaring war, he leaped on his horse and plunged into the thick of the enemy. The daring, the votiveness, the generosity, of the sacrifice,-the imagined favour of the infernal deities,—generally raised the courage of the legions to enthusiasm, and spread panic among the foe. "There," says the historian, speaking concerning Decius, "he appeared in the view of both armies, far more august than human bearing: as if sent from heaven to appease all the wrath

of the gods: to turn destruction from his own ranks to those of his adversaries."-When Hannibal had incited the young prisoners, whom he had captured from the enemies that harassed his passage across the Alps, to bloody contests with each other, for the prize of a few suits of armour and a few well-appointed steeds, they surviving to receive their rewards, or dying to be released from their present bitter bonds and sufferings,—he told his Carthaginians, that he had presented that spectacle that they might, by discerning their own condition in the fate of those unhappy captives, more clearly judge what they themselves should resolve; that, in the combat they had seen, and the prize offered to the conqueror, there was displayed a perfect image of that state into which they were brought by fortune: that they must conquer, or be slain, or fall alive into the power of their enemies.-Artaphernes, brother to Darius, said to the Athenian ambassadors sent by Clisthenes, "Send Darius earth and water, and he will accept your alliance," these being the accustomed symbols of homage.-Themistocles is counselled by the wife of Admetus to take their child in his hand, and to sit down on the hearth, that rising when the king of the Mollosians should enter, he might rise with the child, which Thucydides, in relating the events, describes as "the most pathetic form of supplication.”—When the Samians sent to Lacedæmon for succours in distress, their orators spoke a laboured speech. It being ended, the Spartans answered, that they had forgotten the first part, and could not comprehend the latter. Whereupon they produced their empty bread-baskets, and said they wanted bread. "What need of words," was the reply, "do not your empty bread-baskets tell your wants ?"—One more of these specimens shall content us. When Brennus, with his Gauls, had invested the capitol, about eighty of the most venerable and illustrious old Romans devoted themselves to death; holding the common superstition that thus confusion and terror would overtake the invaders. The noble veterans, arrayed in the richest ensigns of their respective conditions,-pontifices, consuls, generals who had obtained their triumphs,―placed their curule chairs on the Forum, and seated themselves with the most

unshrinking bravery. Their magnificent apparel, their noble aspect, their silence, their firmness, caused the barbarians for a long while to stand distantly and reverently, as though gazing upon what was divine. At last the resentment of a soldier's rude curiosity, by Marcus Papirius, led to the merciless massacre of all these self-devoted senators, who had attempted none of that mystery which their butchers had suspected, but were ranged and attired according to the sanctity of their vow, and the dreadness of their resolution.

The disposition of the human mind to reflect itself in symbols, and then in the painting of symbolic actions, advances still further in illustrative Celebrations. Heraldry not only engraved its proud device and cognizance,—as on the shields of the seven chiefs against Thebes,-Sculpture not only wrought its enigmatic ponderous monuments, its Sphinx, its Colossus,— but processions, movements, exercises, and images, were made to syllable some historic tale, or memorable transaction. The Olympic Games, and their commemorative character, have been already discussed. The Apollinarian of Rome were little more than holidays and songs, in honour of Apollo, no part of the Greek Pentathlon being admitted. The festive celebrations which I intend are more scenic. Take that of Adonis. The former portion of the festival was filled with the expressions of frantic grief. While the statue of the youth was in imaginary interment, the loudest lamentations filled the air. When it began to be raised, the joy of the multitude broke forth into exclamations of joy, and acts of revelry. Not only were such spectacles exhibited in Phenician Biblus, but in Phrygia. The Corybantes bewailed the death of Atys, to whom Cybele was attached. Indeed alternations of dejection and rapture distinguished all those festive rites which were classed under the denomination of mysteries. Of this kind were the orgies of Bacchus. Αυτοσχεδιασματα, were extempore songs in his praise. It is probable that more of a continued chronicle was contained in the Dithyrambics, than in any other mystic songs. Could we separate the dissolute noise and ribaldry of the Bacchanals, from the truths, historic and moral, which they

obscured and discredited, old Dionysus might prove himself a benefactor, and the Thyrsus be tossed on high, an emblem of temperance, order, and peace. Our best authority is the Tragedy of the Bacchæ, by Euripides. It was probably acted during the feast. It is evidently intended to censure the madness of profligacy, the furor of vice, which commonly prevailed, while yet the poet would defend the rite. Here are deposited the precious remains of that strange worship, from which tragedy derives its name, the goat being the animal commonly sacrificed to that deity.* And this seems to be all that we know respecting the transition of the serious drama, from the floor of the tumbril and moveable scaffold, with its recitations and chants, to the noble theatre of Athens, its lofty embodyings and choral odes. Horace speaks with great caution and diffidence in relation to this subject. Thespis, it is said, invented a new genius of tragedy, and to have carried his pieces about in carts, which his company, being first besmeared with the lees of wine, sung and represented. After him Eschylus, the author of the vizard and noble robe, covered the stage with planks of a tolerable size, and taught his actors to speak with majestic voice and to tread with measured step. It was to the honour of this great tragedian that he loved to confess his obligations. To Homer his was ever a ready acknowledgment: Τεμάχη των Ομήρου μεγάλων δείπνων. And now we can feel our way independently. For we have noble remains of the Melpomene of Greece. To that muse we must very freely attribute whatever after ages have witnessed and created of tragic power to move our pity and awake our fear.

The previous induction will go far to simplify the origin of the drama. Symbolic action seems a natural and favourite method of conveying knowledge and depicting sentiment. Many circumstances, religious and political, have drawn forth this tendency until at last Genius the most consummate found in it the vehicle for its inspirations.

The goat was also the prize of the tragic contests :-"Carmine qui tragico vilem certavit ob hircum."-Hor: Ars Poet: 228.

Bentley quite scorns those who would derive it from τρυγωδια, or τραχεια ώδη: he calls the "guesses absurd and ridiculous.”—Dissertation on Phalaris.

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