great landed gentry, who might seek for renown or court popularity by bestowing their wealth upon public institutions; but that the noble temples, the sculptures, and other works of art, which ornamented their cities and were subservient to purposes of common interest, could have been produced only by the united deliberations and contributions of the mass of the inhabitants. They seem therefore to _prove_ the _universal_ prevalence both of a liberal patriotic feeling, and of a cultivated taste for the beautiful and the sublime. [297] J. H. Voss, Virgil’s Ländliche Gedichte, tom. ii. p. 353. [298] Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alterthumskunde, i. 1. p. 180; i. 2. p. 305. [299] Aristot. Polit. l. vi. 2. 2. [300] L. viii. c. 41. 5. p. 429, ed. Siebel. Virgil bears his testimony to their superior skill in vocal and instrumental music. Arcadian swains, Ye best artificers of soothing strains. _Bucol._ x. 32.--_Warton’s Translation._ This must of course be understood as referring only to music and poetry of the pastoral kind. To the composition of the higher species of poetry, by which the Greeks of other countries laid a foundation for the instruction and delight of all succeeding ages, the Arcadians never aspired. At the same time there can be no doubt that they bestowed great care upon the exhibition of dramatic compositions, though they did not attempt to write them: of this fact we have sufficient proof in the remains of the theatres found upon the sites of their principal cities, and especially of the theatre of Megalopolis, which was the greatest in all Greece[301]. [301] Pausanias, l. viii. 32. 1. Leake’s Travels in the Morea, vol. ii. p. 32. 39, 40.