pects of nature; and yet fo little indebted was he for his celebrity to thofe attainments which are thought effential to modern education, that it feems probable that he could neither read nor write. To the invention of a poet, he unites the feelings of a philanthropist. He celebrates the arts which fuftain and adorn human life, and breathes the most lively fentiments of piety, patriotifm, and focial affection. As he defcribes those miseries of man which fpring from dishonour, difcord, and war, there is an air of deep folemnity diffused over his poems; and in this refpect, as well as in his picture of primeval manners, there is a clofe affinity to the books of the Old Teftament. His genius, like the Jupiter he portrays, is fupreme in majefty, when compared with that of other poets; and is never exerted in a manner which harmonifes fo perfectly with its powers, as when he foars to the fublime. Among the numerous circumstances which may be related to his praife, it is furely not the leaft extraordinary, that the beauty and contrivance of his fables, the harmony of his numbers, and the various exertions of his genius, raised at once by one mighty effort the dignity of epic poetry to fuch a pitch of perfection, that almost all the merit of fucceeding poets has confifted in following, without the power to overtake him. B. C. 907. For a glowing paffage on the genius of Homer, the fource of the beauties of the tragedy, cloquence, painting, and sculpture of Greece, fee Anácharfis, vol. i. p. 105. The The tragic mufe gradually improved her charms, gained the full dignity of her character, and spoke the genuine language of the paffions. She animated the Greeks with that original dramatic excellence, which the Romans, however fond of theatrical exhibitions, found to be unattainable. She firft enlivened the fcenes of ESCHYLUS with wild fublimity, gave beauty and grace to the polifhed and energetic SOPHOCLES, and taught EURIPIDES, to breathe his pathetic and moral ftrains. Comedy amufed the Athenians in its ruder ftate with the coarfe licentioufness and broad humour of ARISTOPHANES, and in its more pleafing and elegant garb, charmed them with the chafte fentiment and diverfified characters of MENANDER'. To this admired writer, the greateft ornament of the new comedy, are afcribed no lefs than 105 plays. Only the titles of 73, and fome fhort fragments, have efcaped the ravages of time. The ftile of these precious relicks is pure and elegant, and the turn of thought is moral and ferious like that of EURIPIDES, whom he is faid to have imitated. Of the lofty flights of PINDAR, the celebrated bard of Thebes, we can only judge by his few remaining Odes, which are faid to be far inferior to his Hymns unfortunately loft. He celebrates the victors in the facred games of Greece, particularly Hiero of Syracufe and Theron of Agrigentum, and rehearses the praises of the cities from whence they fprang. His diction is ftrong, his images bold, various, and vivid, his tranfitions rapid, and his fentiments fublime. Imitations of Pindar, except a few by Horace, Dryden, and Gray, are tame and fpiritlefs; and are no more to be compared to his grandeur of thought, and truly poetical fervour, than pictures of the eruption of Etna, which is a favourite subject of his description, are to the real appearance of that mountain. "Forth from whofe nitrous caverns issuing rife Far o'er the reddening main huge rocky fragments pour " At a much later period, THEOCRITUS a native, of Sicily, defcribed the rural manners, and romantic fcenes, of his country in his Paftorals, which, like the rofes gliftering with the dew drops of the m Weft's Pindar, Τας εξευγονται μεν απλά τα πυρΘ. αγνολαίας Εκ μυχῶν παγαι· πόλαμος Δ ̓ αμεραισιν μεν προχεονι ροον καπν Αιθων αλλ' εν ορφναισιν πέρας Φοίνισσα κυλινδομενα φλοξ ες βαθει αν φέρει πολλες πλακα συν απαλαγῷ. Pind. Пva á Heyne, p. 188. morning, morning, are fresh from the hand of nature, and attract us with the charms of originality", and beautiful wildness of defcription. Hiftory ftands eminently diftinguished among the various branches of Grecian literature. The Father of Grecian hiftory was Herodotus, a native of Halicarnaffus a City in Caria, born four years before the Expedition of Xerxes into Greece. He commenced his entertaining work with an account of Cyrus the elder King of Perfia, and continued it to the battle of Mycale, fought in the 8th year of Xerxes. He not only treats of the Greeks and Perfians, but of other nations, the Egyptians, Affyrians, Medes, and Lydians. To the Greeks affembled at the Olympic games he rehearsed some of the moft ftriking paffages of his work; and they were received with univerfal applaufe. As his ftyle flowed with the ease and fweetness of the Ionic dialect, it was fo charming to the ears of his audience, that they imagined each harmonious fentence was expreffed by the mufes themselves. Indulging this pleafing delufion they gave the name of a mufe to each of the nine Books which compofe his work. The veracity of Herodotus may be depended upon whenever he fpeaks of circumftances which fell under his own obfervation; but he admitted with too much credu lity the reports of others. The truth of many his accounts has been confirmed by the obferva of Theocritus flourished, B. C. 282. B. C. 445. tions of modern travellers, particularly with regard to thofe ftupendous monuments of human labour the pyramids of Egypt. Various conjectures have been made to account for the purposes for which they were intended: but no one appears fo probable as that of Herodotus, who informs us that they were built by the antient kings of Egypt for fepulchral monuments. At the age of fifteen THUCYDIDES heard the recitations of Herodotus at the Olympic Games. Struck with the excellence of the compofition, and overpowered by the applause bestowed upon its author, the ingenuous youth burft into tears. Herodotus congratulated Olorus the Father of Thucydides on this proof of fenfibility, and exhorted him to cultivate the talents of fo promifing a fon. His expectation was juftified by the event, and the work written, not with a view to immediate popularity, but to the acquirement of lafting reputation, has conferred the greatest honour upon the name of Thucydides. In the hiftory of the Peloponnefian war he introduces firft a fhort account of the early state of Greece with respect to fociety and manners, and then proceeds to give a detail of twenty one years of the war in eight books, the laft of which is imperfect, and is supposed to haye been written by his daughter. His work is a model of authentic and accurate narrative: Every remark • Κλήμα ες αιει μάλλον ή αγώνισμα ες το παραχρήμα ακύειν ξυγκαίαι. Lib. I. Sect. 22. |