Note 124 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

Early Law and Custom, 9; cf. Burnell and Hopkins, Ordinances of Manu, pp. xx, xxxi. It is worth while quoting here the following interesting note from a letter from the Marquis di Spineto printed in Clarke's Travels, viii. 417:—

"From the most remote antiquity men joined together, and wishing either to amuse themselves or to celebrate the praises of their gods sang short poems to a fixed tune. Indeed, generally speaking, the laws by which they were governed, the events which had made the greatest impression on their minds, the praises which they bestowed upon their gods or on their heroes were all sung long before they were written, and I need not mention that according to Aristotle this is the reason why the Greeks gave the same appellation to laws and to songs."