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 sational innovations of modern days; and he points with approval to Egypt, where certain forms had been consecrated in the temples, from which neither painter nor sculptor was allowed to deviate, and where for ten thousand years they had preserved their chants and the statues of their gods unchanged. The poet should not be left to his own devices; for bad music, like a bad companion, tends to corrupt the character: both the music and the words should be supervised by the magistrate, prizes for the best poems should be awarded by competent judges, and the moral of every lay or legend should be, that all earthly gifts—whether health, beauty, or wealth—are as nothing in comparison with a just and holy life. And in the "City of the Magnetes," where his own laws are to be promulgated, the following is to be the theme of the music consecrated by the State, and appointed to be sung by three choirs—children, youths, and men:—

We can never exactly tell how far Plato's views on