Note (return) — WHY ARE NOT THE ENGLISH A MUSICAL PEOPLE?
Reading edition
As we have noticed the taste of the Greeks for music, it is but fair that we should allude to that of their successors. In ancient Rome, music was never popular. Combats of gladiators and wild beasts filled their theatres with streams of blood, instead of their resounding with music; and after the death of Nero,1 that beautiful art was declared infamous, and by a public decree, banished from the city. In our theatres, however, heroes fight to music, from the Richard III. and Richmond of Shakspeare to the "terrific combats" of modern melodrame.