re not without admirers and supporters
in the latter: and when the Spartans destroyed and sacked the city of
Thebes, they spared the house that had been inhabited by PINDAR, in
respect to that great poet's memory. TERPANDER too, a lyric poet and
musician is related by AElian to have appeased a tumult at Sparta by the
sweetness of his notes and the fire of his poetry. They would not,
however, endure either poetry or music which did not breathe exalted
sentiment, and produce a beneficial impression on the mind.

On the subject of dramatic poetry and its adjuncts, theatres and actors,
the Spartans differed as essentially from the Athenians, as the
puritans, methodists, quakers, and rigid presbyterians differ from the
amateurs of the present day. During a reign of thirty-six years,
AGESILAUS who held the drama in contempt, discouraged and kept the
actors in depression. This extreme austerity prevailed through all ranks
of the rigid Lacedemonian people, who indeed carried it to a length
equally absurd and cruel; for they punished with great severity a famous
poet and musician, for adding three strings to the harp; grounding their
sentence upon a principle universally assented to among them, that the
softness of musical sounds produced effeminacy among the people. Of the
truth of their proposition in the abstract, there can be little doubt;
it is in the rigid application and extreme extension of it the fault
lies. Music has certainly a powerful influence on the passions, and
produces happy effects upon the human heart and mind when cultivated
moderately: but when it becomes the general prevailing passion of a
nation, or, as it were, gets dominion over them, it unquestionably
produces not effeminacy merely, but a hateful depravity of manners.
Whether the unexampled depravation of the modern Italians has been
caused by their passionate devotion to music, or their passionate
devotion to music by their monstrous depravity shall not be discussed in
this place. But the closeness of the connexion between the two things,
no matter which may be the cause or which the effect, will serve as an
illustration of the subject.

It is related that once, when Callipedes a celebrated tragedian, offered
his homage to Agesilaus, and for some time received no notice in return,
he said to the king, "Do you not know me, sir?" To which the king
replied, "You are Callipedes, the actor," and turned from him with
contempt. This harshness and severity e