which they found established, and which prevailed in their time and country.

3. The Shield of Hercules is a separate fragment of a poem wherein it is pretended that Hesiod celebrated the most illustriou heroines of antiquity: and it bears that title, because it contains among other things, a long description of the shield of Hercules, concerning whom the same poem relates a particular adventure.

A. M. 3280.

The poetry of Hesiod, in those places that are susceptible of ornament, is very elegant and delightful, but not so sublime and lofty as that of Homer. Quintilian* reckons him the chief in the middle manner of writing. Datur ei palma in illo medio dicendi genere. ARCHILOCHUS. The poet Archilochus, born in Ant. J. C. 724. Paros, inventor of the Iambic verse, lived in the time of Candules, king of Lydia. He has this advantage in common with Homer, according to Vellius Paterculus, that he carried at once that kind of poetry which he invented to a very great perfection. The feet which gave their name to these verses, and which at first were the only sort used, are composed of one short and one long syllable. The Iambic verse, such as it was invented by Archilochus, seems very proper for a vehement and energetic style: accordingly we see, that Horace, speaking of this poet, says, that it was his anger, or rather his rage, that armed him with his Iambics, for the exercising and exerting of his vengeance.

Archilochum proprio rabies armavit Iambo.t

And Quintilian says, he had an uncommon force of expression, was full of bold thoughts, and of those strokes that are concise, but keen and piercing; in a word, his style was strong and nervous. The longest of his poems were said to be the best. The world have passed the same judgment upon the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero; the latter of whom says the same of his friend Atticus's letters.

The verses of Archilochus were extremely biting and licentious;|| witness those he writ against Lycambes, his father-in-law, which drove him to despair. For this double reason, T his poetry, how excellent soever it was reckoned in other respects, was banished out of Sparta, as being more likely to corrupt the hearts and morals of young people, than to be useful in cultivating their understanding. We have only some very short fragments remaining of this poet.

Summa in hoc vis elocutionis, cùm validæ tum breves vibrantesque sententiæ, plurimum sanguinis atque nervorum. Quin. 1. x. c. 1.

Ut Aristophani Archilochi iambus, sic epistola longissima quæque optima videtur. Cic. Epist. xi. 1. 16. ad Atticum.

Hor. Epod. Od. vi. et Epist. xix. 1. i.

Lacedæmonii libros Archilochi è civitate suâ exportari jusserunt, quòd eorum paràm verecundam ac pudicam lectionem arbitrabantur. Noluerunt enim eá liberorum suorum animos imbui, ne plùs moribus noceret, quâm ingeniis prodesset. Itaque maximum poětam, aut certè summo proximum, quia domum sibi invisium obscoenis maledictis laceraveat, carminum exilio mulctârunt. Vel. Pat. 1. vi. c. 3.

Such a niceness in a heathen people, with regard to the quality of the books which they thought young persons should be permitted to read, is highly worth our notice, and will rise up in condemnation against many Christians.

HIPPONAX. This Poet was of Ephesus, and signalized himself some years after Archilochus, in the same kind of poetry, and with the same force and vehemence. He was ugly, little, lean, and slender.* Two celebrated sculptors, who were brothers, Bupalus and Athenis (some call the latter Anthermus,) diverted themselves at his expense, and represented him in a ridiculous form. It is dangerous to attack satiric poets. Hipponax retorted their pleasantry with such keen strokes of satire, that they hanged themselves out of mortification: others say they only quitted the city of Ephesus, where Hipponax lived. His malignant pen did not spare even those to whom he owed his life. How monstrous was this! Horace joins Hipponax with Archliochus, and represents them as two poets equally dangerous. In the Anthologia there are three or four epigrams, which describe Hipponax as terrible even after his death. They admonish travellers to avoid his tomb, as a place from whence a dreadful hail perpetually pours, Φεῦγε τὸν χαλαζεπῆ τάφον, τὸν φρικτόν. Fuge grandinantem tumulum, horrendum.

It is thought he invented the Scazon verse, in which the Spondee is used instead of the Iambus in the sixth foot of the verse that bears that name.

STESICHORUS. He was of Himera, a city in Sicily, and excelled in Lyric poetry, as did those other poets of whom we are going to speak. Lyric poetry is that, the verses of which, digested into odes and stanzas, were sung to the Lyre, or to other such like instruments. Stesichorus flourished betwixt the 37th and 47th Olympiads. Pausanias, after many other fables, relates, that Stesichorus having been punished with the loss of sight for his satirical verses against Helen, did not recover it till he had retracted his invectives, by writing another ode contrary to the first; which latter kind of ode is since called Palinodia. Quintilian says, that he sang of wars and illustrious heroes, and that he supported upon the lyre all the dignity and majesty of epic poetry.

ALCMAN. He was of Lacedæmon, or, as some will have it, of Sardis, in Lydia, and lived much about the same time as Stesichorus. Some make him the first author of amorous verses.

* Hipponacti notabilis vultus fœditase rat; quamobrem imaginem ejus lasciviâ jocorum ii proposuere ridentium cireulis. Quod Hipponax indignatus amaritudinem carminum dis trinxit in tantum, ut credatur aliquibus ad laqueum eos impulisse; quod falsum est. Plin. 1. xxxvi. c. 5.

Anthol. 1. iii.

In malos asperrimus

Parata tollo cornua;

Qualis Lycambæ spretus infido gener,

Aut acer hostis Bupalo. Epod. vi.

Paus. in Lacon. p. 200.

Stesichorum quàm sit ingenio validus, materiæ quoque ostendunt, maxima bella et clarissimos canentem duces, et epici carminis onera lyrâ sustinentem. L.x. c. 1.

ALCEUS. He was born at Mitylene, in Lesbos: it is from him that the Alcaic verse derived its name. He was a professed enemy to the tyrants of Lesbos, and particularly to Pittacus, against whom he perpetually inveighed in his verses. It is said of him,* that being once in a battle, he was seized with such fear and terror, that he threw down his arms, and ran away. Horace has thought fit to give us the same account of himself. Poets do not value themselves so much upon prowess as upon wit. Quintilian says, that the style of Alcæus was close, magnificent, and chaste; and to complete his character, adds, that he very much resembled Homer.

SIMONIDES. This poet was a native of Ceos, an island in the Ægean sea. He continued to flourish at the time of Xerxes's expedition. He excelled principally in elegy. The invention of local memory is ascribed to him, of which I have spoken elsewhere. At twenty-four years of age he disputed for, and carried, the prize of poetry.

The answer he gave a prince, who asked him, what God was, is much celebrated. That prince was Hiero, king of Syracuse. The poet desired a day to consider the question proposed to him. On the morrow he asked two days; and whenever he was called upon for his answer, he still doubled the time. The king, surprised at this behaviour, demanded his reason for it.—It is, replied Simonides, because the more I consider the question, the more obscure it seems: Quia quanto diutiùs considero, tanto mihi res videtur obscurior. The answer was wise, if it proceeded from the high idea which he conceived of the Divine Majesty, which no understanding can comprehend, nor any tongue express.

**

After having travelled through many cities of Asia,†† and amassed considerable wealth by celebrating, in his verses, the praises of those who were capable of rewarding him well, he embarked for the island of Ceos, his native country. The ship was cast away. Every one endeavoured to save what they could. Simonides did not encumber himself with any thing; and when he was asked the reason for it, he replied,-I carry all I have about me: Mecum, inquit, mea sunt cuncta. Several of the company were drowned, being overwhelmed by the weight of the things they attempted to save,

*Herod. 1. v.
€. 95.

†Tecum Philippos et celerem fugam.

Sensi, relictâ non bene parmula. Hor. Od. vii. 1. 2.

In eloquendo brevis et magnificus et diligens, plerumque Homero similis.

Sed me relictis, Musa procax, jocis

Ceæ retractes munera næniæ.

Horat.

Mæstius lacrymis Simonideis. Catull.

Method of teaching and studying the Belles Lettres.

Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1. i. n. 15.

** Certè hoc est Deus, quod et cùm dicitur, non potest dici: cùm æstimatur, non potest æstimari; cùm comparatur, non potest comparari; cùm definitur, ipsâ definitione crescit. S. Aug. serm. de temp. cix.

Nobis ad intellectum pectus augustum est. Et ideo sic eum (Deum) dignè æstimamus, dum inestimabilem dicimus. Eloquar quemadmodum sentio. Magnitudinem Dei qui se putat nôsse, minuit: qui non vult mi nuere, non novit. Minut. Felix.

tt Phædr. 1. iv,

All that

and those who got to shore were plundered by thieves. escaped went to Clazomena, which was not far from the place where the vessel was lost. One of the citizens, who loved learning, and had read the poems of Simonides with great admiration, was exceedingly pleased, and thought it an honour, to receive him into his house. He supplied him abundantly with necessaries, whilst the rest were obliged to beg through the city. The poet, upon meeting them, did not forget to observe how justly he had answered them in regard to his effects: Dixi, inquit, mea mecum esse cuncta; vos quod rapuistis, perit.

He was reproached with having dishonoured poetry by his avarice, in making his pen venal, and not composing any verses till he had agreed on the price to be paid for them. In Aristotle,* we find a proof of this, which does him no honour. A person who had won the prize in the chariot-races, desired Simonides to compose a song of triumph upon that subject. The poet, not thinking the reward sufficient, replied, that he could not treat it well. The prize had been won by mules, and he pretended that animal did not afford the proper matter for praise. Greater offers were made him, which ennobled the mule; and the poem was made. Money has long had power to bestow nobility and beauty:

Et genus et formam regina pecunia donat.

As this animal is generated between a she-ass and a horse, the poet, as Aristotle observes, considered them at first only on the base side of their pedigree. But money made him take them in the other light, and he styled them illustrious foals of rapid steeds: Xaiger' κελλοπόδων θύγατρες ἵππων.

SAPPHO. She was of the same place, and lived at the same time, with Alcæus. The Sapphic verse took its name from her. She composed a considerable number of poems, of which there are but two remaining: these are sufficient to satisfy us that the praises given her in all ages, for the beauty, pathetic softness, numbers, harmony, and infinite graces, of her poetry, are not without foundation. As a farther proof of her merit, she was called the Tenth Muse; and the people of Mitylene engraved her image upon their money. It were to be wished, that the purity of her manners had been equal to the beauty of her genius; and that she had not dishonoured her sex by her vices and irregularities.

ANACREON. This poet was of Teos, a city of Ionia. He lived in the 72d Olympiad. Anacreont spent a great part of his time at the court of Polycrates, that fortunate tyrant of Samos; and not only shared in all his pleasures, but was of his council. Plato tells us, that Hipparchus, one of the sons of Pisistratus, sent a vessel of fifty oars to Anacreon, and wrote him a most obliging letter, entreating him to come to Athens, where his excellent works would † Herod. 1. iii. c. 121. In Hippar. p. 228. 229.

Rhet, l. iii. c. 2.

be esteemed and relished as they deserved. It is said, the only study of this poet was joy and pleasure: and those remains we have of his poetry sufficiently confirm it. We see plainly in all his verses, that his hand writes what his heart feels and dictates. It is impossible to express the elegance and delicacy of his poems: nothing could be more estimable, had their object been more noble.

THESPIS. He was the first inventor of Tragedy. I defer speak. ing of him, till I come to give some account of the tragic poets.

Of the Seven Wise Men of Greece.

These men are too famous in antiquity to be omitted in this present history. Their lives are written by Diogenes Laertius.

THALES, the Milesian. If Cicero* is to be believed, Thales was the most illustrious of the seven wise men. It was he that laid the first foundations of philosophy in Greece, and gave rise to the sect called the Ionic sect; because he, the founder of it, was of Ionia.

He held water to be the first principle of all things;† and that God was that intelligent being, by whom all things were formed from water. The first of these opinions he had borrowed from the Egyptians, who, seeing the Nile to be the cause of the fertility of all their lands, might easily imagine from thence, that water was the principle of all things.

He was the first of the Greeks that studied astronomy. He had exactly foretold the time of the eclipse of the sun that happened in the reign of Astyages, king of Media, of which mention has been made already.

He was also the first that fixed the term and duration of the solar year among the Grecians. By comparing the bigness of the sun's body with that of the moon, he thought he had discovered, that the body of the moon was in solidity but the 720th part of the sun's body, and consequently, that the solid body of the sun was above 700 times bigger than the solid body of the moon. This computation is very far from the truth; as the sun's solidity exceeds, not only 700 times, but many millions of times, the moon's magnitude or solidity. But we know, that in all these matters, and particularly in that of which we are now speaking, the first observations and discoveries were very imperfect.

When Thales travelled into Egypt, he discovered an easy and certain method for taking the exact height of the pyramids, by observing the time when the shadow of our body is equal in length to the height of the body itself.

To show that philosophers were not so destitute, as some people imagined, of that sort of talents and capacity which is proper for business; and that they would be as successful as others in growing

* Princeps Thales, unus è septem cui sex reliquos concessisse primas ferunt. Lib. iv Acad. Quæst. n. 118. † Lib. i. de Nat. Deor. n. 25. Cic. lib. i. de Divin. n. 111.

Plin. lib. xxxvi. cap. 12.