of a wild and dancing gaiety; almost all treating the inhabitants of Olympus with a free and easy familiarity; abounding in rapid transitions, invocations, and reflections or sentiments of the writer; prepared the way for the more regular lyric, as it appeared in the strains of Archilochus (about 700 B. c.), to whom is assigned the distinction of being the father of the Grecian lyric.

The perfection of the Greek lyric had grown out of the intimate connection of poetry with music, fusing the finest results of both into a whole, which, charming the senses and the soul at once, hurried away the listener with an irresistible sweep of enthusiasm. Every thing in the circumstances of Greece contributed to its rapid development and unfailing effect. A spirit of gaiety and social enjoyment was the national characteristic, heightened by the influence of a delightful climate, and by a religion whose airy and fantastic character interposed no gloomy reflection to check the enjoyment of the present. The public and family festivals, sacrifices, games, and poetical contests, assembling multitudes together, exciting the spirit of rivalry, and gratifying the poet as it were with a foretaste of his poetical immortality, the high honours and distinctions everywhere paid to song, rapidly advanced the art to perfection. It is probable, that if the whole mass of the Greek lyric poetry could now be recovered, not only would Horace, Catullus, and the Latin lyric writers, be unquestionably shorn of many of their finest passages, but, in all probability, we should be presented with the noblest and most varied collection that the world has ever produced. For if the light luxurious Bacchanalian spirit of the time be imaged in the graceful trifling of Anacreon's festive songs, we know how the deeper and more gloomy sentiments of a

genuine passion were embodied in the burning lines of Sappho; the ardour of military enthusiasm in him who sang his verses to the Spartan fife, Tyrtæus; the inspiring themes of patriotism in "Alcæus, fancy drest, singing the sword in myrtles dressed;" the touching tenderness of maternal affection in the Danae of Simonides, weeping over her child in her frail and sea-beaten prison; and, above all, the loftiest strains of religious fervour, the praises of demigods and heroes, all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of human existence, in the odes of the greatest master of the Grecian lyre, Pindar. But, unfortunately, of the works of the nine who are enumerated by the ancients as forming the constellation of the lyric writers, and embracing the period from the death of Hesiod down to the great era of the Persian war, viz. Pindar, Bacchylides, Sappho, Anacreon, Stesichorus, Simonides, Ibycus, Alcæus, and Alcman, some have completely perished, and of others only the most trifling fragments remain. Anacreon and Pindar are the only two of which we possess any considerable specimens.

Judging from the few fragments we possess of Sappho, the loss of her works is particularly to be deplored; for she appears to have possessed not merely that wild fire and hurry of passion which predominate in her celebrated ode (with which every one is familiar in the version of Phillips), but a tenderness of heart, a power of presenting imagery in a line or a word, not surpassed by any of the ancient writers, and justly entitling her to the lofty title of the Tenth Muse, bestowed upon her by antiquity. How exquisite, for instance, is the fragment preserved by Demetrius Phalereus,

Εσπερε παντα φερεις
φερεις οίνον, φερεις αίγα

φερεις ματέρι παιδα.

Thus expanded, yet scarcely improved, by Lord Byron :—

O Hesperus, thou bringest all good things
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
To the young bird the parent's brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o'erlaboured steer;
Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gathered round us by thy look of rest;

Thou bringst the child too to the mother's breast.

Pindar unquestionably occupied the highest place among the Greek lyrists; and though it is certain that we are in possession of only a small part of his works, for he appears to have written on every variety of theme, enough remains to satisfy us that the judgment of antiquity, which raised him to the lyric throne, was well founded. Forty-five triumphal lays, in honour of the victors in the public games, have descended to us, and the character and peculiar merits of these have been described with such eloquence, and at the same time critical justice, by Sir Daniel Sandford, in his able sketch of the rise and progress of literature, that we quote the passage in preference to any remarks of our own.

"The most careless reader of these odes must be struck by the excessive admiration of wealth, magnificence, and every species of greatness, to which we have alluded as a characteristic of Pindar's mind. Splendour was the passion of his soul; splendour of achievement, splendour of renown, splendour of station and outward circumstances. His very pride seems to have suggested to him that nothing but splendour was worthy of his muse. His genius, to use a figure of his own, was the eagle of Jove, that would not be severed from the sceptre and the god. These aristocratic predilections, this enthusiastic attachment to munificent monarchs and chiefs of ancient fame, were in perfect unison with the

whole tenor of his destiny; born as he was in the midst of the Pythian festival, living surrounded by shows of solemn pomp, and dying, as he had lived, in the full blaze of public ceremony, in the centre of a theatre, and while rapt in those emotions of rejoicing sympathy which such scenes were sure to awaken in his bosom. To those, however, who may deem apology requisite for the indulgence of so stately a temper, it may be urged in behalf of Pindar, that, as in the case of many remarkable poets, the abstract feeling of veneration was predominant in his mental constitution, and that it was called forth not merely by rank and opulence among mankind, but even more powerfully by the contemplation of the divine attributes. Hence that glow of piety which shines so brightly in his odes, sometimes breaking out in expressions of the deepest awe, or in sublime pictures of deity, and sometimes assuming an aspect of moral beauty, adding force and lustre to the lessons of wisdom. The latter modification of religious feeling has given birth to some of the noblest passages in the poetry of Pindar. He was well aware that emotion does not exclude sentiment; that the ethics of the heart are not less sound than those of the brain; and that nature is often hurried, in moments of excitement, into the innermost shrines of truth. But he knew likewise, that the philosophy of such moments is prompt and peremptory; oracular, not syllogistic; and this knowledge has secured him from frequently offending against the genuine character of lyric song by lengthened trains of moral reflection."

When the lyric poetry of Greece had reached its perfection in Pindar, its drama rose into shape and grandeur in the tragedies of Æschylus. But for the history of the progress and decline of the Greek drama, tragic and comic, the

reader is referred to the article DRAMA in the Encyclopæ dia Britannica.

Little remains to be said of the declining portion of Greek poetry. General corruption, introduced by luxury, and the evil principles of the sophists; loss of liberty, when all the powers of Greece had yielded to the sway of Alexander; the introduction of a tumid oriental taste into eloquence and composition in general; such are the features which mark the period from the rise of Alexander the Great to the extinction of the poetical literature of Greece. After the death of Alexander, indeed, a strong effort was made by the Ptolemies to render Alexandria the rival of Athens, and to assemble about their court poets, orators, and men of science. In the latter point only their efforts were successful. Science continued to flourish, and long after Greece had ceased to produce any great works in the fine arts, we find geometrical invention carried to a height by Euclid, whilst the wonderworking science of Archimedes struck the Romans at the siege of Syracuse with terror and astonishment. But eloquence remained, as before, hollow and pompous, whilst poetry was in a great measure wasted in the vain attempt to give life and interest to the abstractions of science. This was the period of the learned or didactic poetry. Mythology, astronomy, botany, were the favourite subjects to which the art of the poet was devoted. One attempt, however, to revive the epic taste is visible in the elegant Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius. He cannot indeed be regarded as an epic poet, for he wants fire and originality; but he is a graceful compiler of traditions, the effect of which he heightens by occasional touches of tenderness.

The most interesting, however, and by far the most original, of the works of the decline of Greek poetry, are the