Music and dancing were indeed cultivated among them, and with success and skill; but the music and the dance were always of one kind--it was a crime to vary an air [140] or invent a measure.

A martial, haughty, and superstitious tribe can scarcely fail to be attached to poetry,--war is ever the inspiration of song,--and the eve of battle to a Spartan was the season of sacrifice to the Muses.

The poetical temperament seems to have been common among this singular people.

But the dread of innovation, when carried to excess, has even worse effect upon literary genius than legislative science; and though Sparta produced a few poets gifted, doubtless, with the skill to charm the audience they addressed, not a single one of the number has bequeathed to us any other memorial than his name.

Greece, which preserved, as in a common treasury, whatever was approved by her unerring taste, her wonderful appreciation of the beautiful, regarded the Spartan poetry with an indifference which convinces us of its want of value.