plus habile chantre un bouc etoit le prix.

Formless and gross did tragedy arise,
A simple chorus, rather mad than wise;
For fruitful vintages the dancing throng
Roar'd to the god of grapes a drunken song:
Wild mirth and wine sustain'd the frantic note,
And the best singer had the prize, a goat.(175)

Thespis made several alterations in it, which Horace describes after
Aristotle, in his _Art of Poetry_. The first(176) was to carry his actors
about in a cart, whereas before they used to sing in the streets, wherever
chance led them. Another was to have their faces smeared over with
wine-lees, instead of acting without disguise, as at first. He also
introduced a character among the chorus, who, to give the actors time to
rest themselves and to take breath, repeated the adventures of some
illustrious person; which recital, at length, gave place to the subjects
of tragedy.

Thespis fut le premier, qui barbouille de lie,
Promena par les bourgs cette heureuse folie,
Et d'acteurs mal oines chargeant un tombereau,
Amusa les passans d'un spectacle nouveau.(177)

First Thespis, smear'd with lees, and void of art,
The grateful folly vented from a cart;
And as his tawdry actors drove about,
The sight was new, and charm'd the gaping rout.

(M1) Thespis lived in the time of Solon.(178) That wise legislator, upon
seeing his pieces performed, expressed his dislike, by striking his staff
against the ground; apprehending that these poetical fictions and idle
stories, from mere theatrical representations, would soon become matters
of importance, and have too great a share in all public and private
affairs.

(M2) It is not so easy to invent, as to improve the inventions of others.
The alterations Thespis made in tragedy, gave room for AEschylus to make
new and more considerable of his own. He was born at Athens, in the first
year of the sixtieth Olympiad. He took upon him the profession of arms, at
a time when the Athenians reckoned almost as many heroes as citizens. He
was at the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea, where he did his
duty. (M3) But his disposition called him elsewhere, and put him upon
entering into another course, where no less glory was to be acquired; and
where he was soon without any competitors. As a superior genius, he took
upon him to reform, or rather to create tragedy anew; of which he has, in
consequence, been always acknowledged the in