severe than Shakespeare; yet the ordinary Athenian citizen could enjoy Æschylus at the first hearing, and those of the next generation knew his plays almost by heart, and could appreciate the most distant allusion to them. In what lies the reason of their superiority? For that it is in some sense a superiority we cannot but feel. To have lost any power of enjoyment is in some sense a fall; and to have lost the power of enjoying what is simple, to want more piquancy, more excitement, is a fall somewhat like losing the innocence of childhood. The multiplication of our interests has made the ordinary course of life so exciting, that we want something still more violent for our amusements. This is one cause. The other lies in the leisure which the ordinary Athenian possessed, and the literature with which he was imbued. There were so many slaves in Attica, that the free population was but a small minority, and it is with the freemen only that we have to deal. These formed, therefore, virtually an aristocracy, freed, to a great extent, from servile work, so that they were provided with abundant leisure. But from their word for leisure our word "school" is derived, for their unoccupied time was all a time of learning. The great sculptors were already beginning to adorn Athens with the masterpieces which have not since been equalled, and in every man's mouth, as the national literature, were the noble poems of Homer. Against such means of forming a simple and natural taste there were no newspapers, or novels, or waxworks to be set; happily for the Athenians, their books and models were few and good.
