These improvements, chiefly mechanical, form the boundary to the achievements of Thespis.

He did much to create a stage--little to create tragedy, in the proper acceptation of the word.

His performances were still of a ludicrous and homely character, and much more akin to the comic than the tragic.

Of that which makes the essence of the solemn drama of Athens--its stately plot, its gigantic images, its prodigal and sumptuous poetry, Thespis was not in any way the inventor.

But PHRYNICHUS, the disciple of Thespis, was a poet; he saw, though perhaps dimly and imperfectly, the new career opened to the art, and he may be said to have breathed the immortal spirit into the mere mechanical forms, when he introduced poetry into the bursts of the chorus and the monologue of the actor.