manifested; and that the worship rendered to
him involves both elements—the pain felt for
the divinity snatched away, and the joy
occasioned by his being found again."

In this beautiful myth, after all, poetry has,
perhaps, but sublimated the phenomenal, and
transformed the simply natural into the divine.
The culture, however spiritual in its results,
differed nothing from the method by which the
political idea related itself to social conditions.
Adonis was probably the sun. The festival in
his honour resembled the worship of Osiris: a
funeral festival, at which the women broke out
into extravagant lamentations over the departed
deity. These lamentations were embodied in a
song which Herodotus called Maneros, after
the only son of the first king of the Egyptians,
who died prematurely. It is the only song the
Egyptians have, and the same as the Linus
song of the Greeks. In this the divinity of
pain is recognised. Three leading ideas are
recognisable in the poetic embodiment and the
devout ceremonial. Osiris, the sun, the Nile,
are all employed as symbols, and referred to
the same primitive unity. And thus the
imagination, is initiating a religion of sorrow,
uttered its complaints in lyric verse, in which
the moral nature of man and the physical
structure of the universe combined with each
other in forming a mythology, the two-fold
elements of which refer us to the opposite
principles in which it originated, and render it
equally capable of an ideal and a sensuous
interpretation.

Fanciful as these creations were, they might
have changed daily, but for the invention of
verse, which, by means of a metrical arrangement
and a peculiar diction, fixed in a permanent
form the verbal expression of poetical
ideas, together with their rhythmical flow, and
thus enabled the memory to preserve them as
precious utterances of truth. Before the art
of writing existed, such an aid to memory was
specially welcome, and the golden verses thus
enunciated were repeatedly sung by their
hearers, and transmitted to others, even of a
distant day and generation. It also became
an art to invent symbolic poems, in which the
natural and the spiritual should mutually
illustrate each other, not by way of allegory, but
as twin portions of an original whole, both of
which were supposed, though erroneously, to
be equally knowable to the wise. The poet
and the philosopher were the same, and
continued to be so long after poetry was written;
nor could the introduction of prose avail to
separate them, until comparatively modern
times, when the distinction was seen to be
convenient to prevent the confusion which
had so long identified the fields of fancy
and fact. Even history was, at first, written
in verse, and imagination permitted to
dominate in its statements; and it remains to this
day difficult for the student to distinguish
between actual occurrences and the fables
substituted for them in the earliest records of the
race, in which poetry and religion are almost
inextricably identified. Many arts, indeed,
were then represented by the same individual,
who was at once theologian, physiologist,
speculative and practical philosopher, statesman,
lawgiver, poet, orator, or musician. And
while the doctrines and precepts connected
with these were delivered orally, and until
they were collected and recorded, the form of
verse preserved them in the memory of the
hearers, who were thus enabled to repeat them
to their children, and at their public festivals
and ceremonial observances, for the diversion
and instruction of the whole community.

Even at a later period, the Greeks had no
other term than music for naming that part of
their system of education which had express
reference to the cultivation of mind; which
term is therefore employed by their writers,
both historians and philosophers, in a most
comprehensive sense. The fact, indeed, that
the term music was thus used in such a large
and inclusive manner, and was united with
poetry, rehearsals, and imitative gestures, has
helped the general student to appreciate more
justly the "musical contests" of the Greeks,
which exerted the greatest influence on the
people, being connected with the four most
solemn of the national games, the Olympian,
Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean, and also, at
Athens, with the Panathensean festival. This
last was one of the highest interest, and
attended by vast multitudes. By the appointment
of Pericles, the contests were held in the
Odeum, an edifice specially appropriated for
the purpose. The competitors in these contests
were required to possess natural abilities, long
and laborious preparation, theoretical and
practical knowledge of their art, a well-modulated
voice, and skill upon the musical instruments
which accompanied the exercise, usually the
lyre or harp. Verse and music were wedded
on these occasions, as the ministers of beauty,
and were assisted by the eloquence of such
men as Isocrates, who recited his famous
panegyric at one of these festivals. Dramatic
exhibitions were also given, the dialogue pertaining
to which was always written in verse.
Both verse and prose had due honour on these
occasions; nor should it be forgotten that the
writers in both were in Greece accustomed to
make their works known by recitation or
rehearsal. They read or rehearsed by themselves,
or by proxy, sometimes procuring it to be done
by others, in order to avail themselves of the
opinion of hearers and judges; and this they
did both publicly and privately. The practice
has been partly revived in our days, and more
than one author has recently appeared on the
platform to read in public his effusions. It had
its origin in an early Greek custom, mentioned
by Homer; according to which, lyric songs
and epic rhapsodies were sung by the poets
themselves, or by other singers, who, as well
as the poets, played upon musical instruments.

There is the same motive and occasion for
verse in modern as in ancient times. It is the
appropriate expression of delicate and refined
ideas and sentiments, which will scarcely bear
the comparatively rough handling of robust