In what age or province of Greece arose the first minister of this poetical revelation, it is not now possible to decide. The art of writing, however, which the Egyptian king regarded as the enemy of memory, had not passed the Ægæan. The songs men heard were wafted on the wings of music from tongue to tongue, and, by degrees, the professors of this marvellous art, by which the wisdom and the glory of the past were embalmed in the sweets of verse, embodied themselves into a distinct order called Aoidoi or Singers.[974] The life of these men in the remote ages of antiquity is little known to us. Wanderers, however, for the most part they were, in some respects not unlike the Jongleurs and Troubadours of the middle ages, though occupying a higher station and guided by a higher aim. Their first and ostensible object was, doubtless, to delight; but it is of great importance to inspire men with a delight in lofty and ennobling conceptions,—to withdraw them for a moment from pursuits sordid or brutalising or unmanly, to the contemplation of heroic acts,—of honour, of patriotism, of friendship,—of the great and solid advantages accruing from peace and commerce, and the experience of travel and adversity. Footnote 974: Cf. Wolf. Proleg. in Hom. p. 73. 93. sqq. What were the rewards they obtained it is easy to conjecture. They consisted, principally, in the rays of joy reflected back upon them by a thousand happy countenances at once. Gain they neither would nor could regard. He who renders multitudes wise and happy must be happy and wise himself; and wisdom scorns to measure its gifts against gold. The truly wise and great man, therefore, if fortune have originally befriended him, will shower his benefactions, as God his rain, liberally and without distinction upon all; and if necessity compel him to receive some return, his moderation will content itself with the least possible amount. Embraced within the circle of refinement which they themselves had created, however, they gradually became secularised, though we must be careful to distinguish them from their successors of a later age. The prodigious admiration which they and their songs excited may be learned from those passages in Homer where Phemios and Demodocos are introduced, and from that animated dialogue of Plato, in which the rhapsodist Ion describes his office and his audience. It has been justly remarked, that if this man, a mere actor, could hurry into whatever channel he pleased the affections of a whole theatre, melt them into tears, fire them with indignation, or clothe their countenances with the smiles of joy, much more would the poets themselves work upon their passions by an art far nearer nature.