was infinitely more the object of emulation in those generous times, than coronets and garters are of modern ambition. Let me add too, that as the former were invariably the reward of merit only, they reflected a very different lustre upon the wearer. The honours acquired at these games quickly became the darling themes of the poets, and the charms of musick were called in to give additional graces to poetry. Panegyrick swelled with the most nervous strokes of eloquence, and decked up with all the flowers of rhetorick, was joined to the fidelity and dignity of history; whilst the canvass glowing with mimick life, and the animated marble contributed all the powers of art to perpetuate the memory of the victors. These were the noble incentives, which fired the Grecian youth with the glorious emulation of treading in the steps of those publick-spirited heroes, who were the first institutors of these celebrated games. Hence that refined taste for arts and sciences arose in Greece, and produced those masterpieces of every kind, the inimitable remains of which not only charm, but raise the justest admiration of the present times. This taste raised a new object of applause, and at last supplanted the parents which gave it birth. Poetry, eloquence, and musick became equally the subjects of emulation at the publick games, were allotted their respective crowns, and opened a new road to fame and immortality. Fame was the end proposed and hoped for by all; and those who despaired of attaining it by the rugged and dangerous paths of honour, struck into the new and flowery road,[155] which was quickly crowded with the servile herd of imitators. Monarchs turned poets,[156] and great men, fiddlers; and money was employed to bias the judges at the publick games to crown wretched verses and bungling performers with the wreaths appropriated only to superior merit. This taste prevailed more or less in every state of Greece (Sparta alone excepted) according to the different turn of genius of each people; but it obtained the most ready admission at Athens, which quickly became the chief seat of the muses and graces. Thus a new object of applause introducing a new taste, produced that fatal alteration in the manners of the Athenians, which became a concurrent cause of the ruin of their republick. For though the manners of the Athenians grew more polite, yet they grew more corrupt, and publick virtue ceased gradually to be the object of publick applause and publick emulation. As dramatick poetry affected most the taste of the Athenians; the ambition of excelling in that species of poetry was so violent, that Æschylus died with grief, because in a publick contention with Sophocles the prize was adjudged to his antagonist.[157] But though we owe the finest pieces of that kind now extant to that prevailing taste, yet it introduced such a rage for theatrical entertainments as fatally contributed to the ruin of the republick.