epresentation itself of the
sentiments of the poet, as the spokesman of the whole human race. He
goes on to say (and I think truly), 'that the Chorus always retained
among the Greeks a peculiar national signification, publicity being,
according to their republican notions, essential to the completeness of
every important transaction.' Thus the Chorus represented idealised
public opinion: not of course, the shifting, hasty public opinion of the
moment--to that it was a conservative check, and it calmed to soberness
and charity--for it was the matured public opinion of centuries; the
experience, and usually the sad experience, of many generations; the very
spirit of the Greek race.

The Chorus might be composed of what the poet would. Of ancient
citizens, waiting for their sons to come back from the war, as in the
_Agamemnon_ of AEschylus; of sea-nymphs, as in his _Prometheus Bound_;
even of the very Furies who hunt the matricide, as in his _Eumenides_; of
Senators as in the _Antigone_ of Sophocles; or of village farmers as in
his _OEdipus at Colonos_--and now I have named five of the greatest
poems, as I hold, written by mortal man till Dante rose. Or it may be
the Chorus was composed--as in the comedies of Aristophanes, the greatest
humourist the world has ever seen--of birds, or of frogs, or even of
clouds. It may rise to the level of Don Quixote, or sink to that of
Sancho Panza; for it is always the incarnation of such wisdom, heavenly
or earthly, as the poet wishes the people to bring to bear on the
subject-matter!

But let the poets themselves, rather than me, speak awhile. Allow me to
give you a few specimens of these choruses--the first as an example of
that practical, and yet surely not un-divine wisdom, by which they
supplied the place of our modern preacher, or essayist, or didactic poet.

Listen to this of the old men's chorus in the _Agamemnon_, in the
spirited translation of my friend Professor Blackie:--

'Twas said of old, and 'tis said to-day,
That wealth to prosperous stature grown
Begets a birth of its own:
That a surfeit of evil by good is prepared,
And sons must bear what allotment of woe
Their sires were spared.
But this I refuse to believe: I know
That impious deeds conspire
To beget an offspring of impious deeds
Too like their ugly sire.
But whoso is just, though his wealth like a river
Flow down