These seem to
have been either like our dumb-shows, or else a kind of extempore
farces--a thing to this day a good deal in use all over Italy and in
Tuscany. In a more particular manner, add to these that extempore kind
of jesting dialogues begun at their harvest and vintage feasts, and
carried on so rudely and abusively afterwards as to occasion a very
severe law to restrain their licentiousness; and those lovers of poetry
and good eating, who seem to have attended the tables of the richer
sort, much like the old provincial poets, or our own British bards, and
sang there to some instrument of music the achievements of their
ancestors, and the noble deeds of those who had gone before them, to
inflame others to follow their great examples.
[Illustration: ANCIENT ROMAN SHOES.]
[Illustration: ANCIENT ROMAN TORCHES.]
[Illustration: ANCIENT ROMAN DRINKING-BOTTLE.]
[Illustration: ANCIENT ALABASTER BOX.]
The names of almost all these poets sleep in peace with all their works;
and, if we may take the word of the other Roman writers of a better
age, it is no great loss to us. One of their best poets represents them
as very obscure and very contemptible; one of their best historians
avoids quoting them as too barbarous for politer ears; and one of their
most judicious emperors ordered the greatest part of their writings to
be burnt, that the world might be troubled with them no longer.
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