Aristotle divides all poetry, in relation to the progress of it, into nature without art, art begun, and art completed. Mankind, even the most barbarous, have the seeds of poetry implanted in them. The first specimen of it was certainly shown in the praises of the Deity, and prayers to him; and as they are of natural obligation, so they are likewise of divine institution: which Milton observing, introduces Adam and Eve every morning adoring God in hymns and prayers. The first poetry was thus begun, in the wild notes of natural poetry, before the invention of feet, and measures. The Grecians and Romans had no other original of their poetry. Festivals and holidays soon succeeded to private worship, and we need not doubt but they were enjoined by the true God to his own people, as they were afterwards imitated by the heathens; who, by the light of reason, knew they were to invoke some superior Being in their necessities, and to thank him for his benefits. Thus, the Grecian holidays were celebrated with offerings to Bacchus, and Ceres, and other deities, to whose bounty they supposed they were owing for their corn and wine, and other helps of life; and the ancient Romans, as Horace tells us, paid their thanks to mother Earth, or Vesta, to Silvanus, and their Genius, in the same manner. But as all festivals have a double reason of their institution, the first of religion, the other of recreation, for the unbending of our minds, so both the Grecians and Romans agreed, after their sacrifices were performed, to spend the remainder of the day in sports and merriments; amongst which, songs and dances, and that which they called wit, (for want of knowing better,) were the chiefest entertainments. The Grecians had a notion of Satyrs, whom I have already described; and taking them, and the Sileni, that is, the young Satyrs and the old, for the tutors, attendants, and humble companions of their Bacchus, habited themselves like those rural deities, and imitated them in their rustic dances, to which they joined songs, with some sort of rude harmony, but without certain numbers; and to these they added a kind of chorus.