234 PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



worship of the Greeks and characterized also their dramatic 

 representations, is not only displayed in later times by the 

 cathedral choir, which shares the service with the solo-sing 

 ers, and by the operatic chorus which does the like on the 

 stage, but is also displayed by the choral accompanists de 

 scribed in the above passage, and even now survives among 

 us as the chorus which habitually winds up each verse of a 

 convivial song in a public house. 



The essential fact, however, which is lacking in the de 

 scription above quoted from Prof. Morley, and which is not 

 indeed implied by the observances he describes when taken 

 by themselves, is that these ballad-recitations were originally 

 religious laudations, and that the reciter of them was in 

 primitive times the priest-poet. Comparison of this account 

 given by him with accounts above given both of the still 

 extant religious ceremonies performed by North American 

 Indians and those recorded as having been performed among 

 the Greeks, make it clear that the religious meaning has 

 lapsed and that the prototype of the recited ballad was a 

 hymn sung by a priest in praise of some apotheosized hero : 

 the loss of the religious character being, as before suggested, 

 probably a result of the conquest of Christianity over pagan 

 ism.] 



