remarkable talent for its cultivation. Pratinas, the
contemporary of Aeschylus, did not long attempt to vie with his mighty
rival in his own line [12]. Recurring to the old satyr-chorus, he
reduced its unmeasured buffooneries into a regular and systematic
form; he preserved the mythological tale, and converted it into an
artistical burlesque. This invention, delighting the multitude, as it
adapted an ancient entertainment to the new and more critical taste,
became so popular that it was usually associated with the graver
tragedy; when the last becoming a solemn and gorgeous spectacle, the
poet exhibited a trilogy (or three tragedies) to his mighty audience,
while the satyric invention of Pratinas closed the whole, and answered
the purpose of our modern farce [13]. Of this class of the Grecian
drama but one specimen remains, in the Cyclops of Euripides. It is
probable that the birth, no less than the genius of Aeschylus, enabled
him with greater facility to make the imposing and costly additions to
the exhibition, which the nature of the poetry demanded--since, while
these improvements were rapidly proceeding, the poetical fame of
Aeschylus was still uncrowned. Nor was it till the fifteenth year
after his first exhibition that the sublimest of the Greek poets
obtained the ivy chaplet, which had succeeded to the goat and the ox,
as the prize of the tragic contests. In the course of a few years, a
regular stage, appropriate scenery and costume, mechanical inventions
and complicated stage machinery, gave fitting illusion to the
representation of gods and men. To the monologue of Phrynichus,
Aeschylus added a second actor [14]; he curtailed the choruses,
connected them with the main story, and, more important than all else,
reduced to simple but systematic rules the progress and development of
a poem, which no longer had for its utmost object to please the ear or
divert the fancy, but swept on its mighty and irresistible march, to
besiege passion after passion, and spread its empire over the whole
soul.

An itinerant platform was succeeded by a regular theatre of wood--the
theatre of wood by a splendid edifice, which is said to have held no
less an audience than thirty thousand persons [15]. Theatrical
contests became a matter of national and universal interest. These
contests occurred thrice a year, at three several festivals of Bacchus
[16]. But it was at the great Dionysia, held at the end of March and
commenc