I think it might be shown that lyrical poetry developed itself, in its more elaborate form, earliest in those places where the poems of Homer are most likely to have been familiarly known.
The peculiar character of the Greek lyrical poetry can only be understood by remembering its inseparable connexion with music; and the general application of both, not only to religious but political purposes.

The Dorian states regarded the lyre and the song as powerful instruments upon the education, the manners, and the national character of their citizens.

With them these arts were watched and regulated by the law, and the poet acquired something of the social rank, and aimed at much of the moral design, of a statesman and a legislator: while, in the Ionian states, the wonderful stir and agitation, the changes and experiments in government, the rapid growth of luxury, commerce, and civilization, afforded to a poetry which was not, as with us, considered a detached, unsocial, and solitary art, but which was associated with every event of actual life--occasions of vast variety--themes of universal animation.

The eloquence of poetry will always be more exciting in its appeals--the love for poetry always more diffused throughout a people, in proportion as it is less written than recited.

How few, even at this day, will read a poem!-- what crowds will listen to a song! Recitation transfers the stage of effect from the closet to the multitude--the public becomes an audience, the poet an orator.