so 



a propitious climate, and a concurrence of circumflances never likely to 

 happen again, admirably qualified them for fuch an undertaking. Nor 

 is it improbable, that this vain and afpiring people might endeavor to 

 form a tongue, that fhould differ in all refpefts from the Orientals, as 

 well in the complex order of its phrafe, and their manner of writing, as 

 in the total exclufion of the rhimc : as if they fcorned to be indebted 

 even for a ivinged word to any nation but their own. Even the divine 

 Plato, from whom more candor might have been expefted, proudly de- 

 rives certain primitive words from a fpiritual fource, as the language of 

 fuperior intelligences ; but with fliame and reluftance confeffes the word 

 mc to be of barbarous origin, o>o,u.a ^afgotpntM, that had fome how dole 

 itfelf upon the Greek ; feeking thereby to conceal the real origin of his 

 country. 



The Orientals, as we have feen, rhiraed their poetry ; and I did expeft 

 to find in fome of the ZxoMa,* or other of the early Greek verfe, a folitary 

 rhime, that, while it marked the legitimacy of its birth, might have 

 pointed fome one of thofe moral fentiments, which at all times, efpecially 

 in the infancy of their flatc, this ingenious and wife people imprelTed on 

 their youth. The great flexibility of their language had promifed fome- 

 thing of the fort. But, after a laborious fearch, no trace of the rhime 

 has been found, or at leafl at the period when one would think it might 

 have been indulged. Still, however, I am inclined to think the firll 

 Grafcians, whether Cadm^i, Cecropii, or Danai, rhimcd their poetry, 

 ■whatever they might have done afterwards. The colony muft have 

 brought with it that language, out of which fprang the daughter, whofe 

 beauty was appointed to enamour the world : but if they did bring their 

 language with them, then, afiTuredly, the rhime diftinguilhed their firll 

 poetry. The fong, undoubtedly, whether feftal or inftruftive, was 

 their firfl fpecies of verfe. Their no^io. prove it, which were fung, Ta§' 



oiM», over their wine. t-JovTo A AS))»r»i xai Xa^wt^s NofiiBo- wap'^mr, ui 'EfftiirTTo; If rffiv i> '"Ta 



irij. No^oSwi^r, fays Athenaus, Deipn. Lib, 14. cap. 3. Originally No/*©- fig- 



nified 



* See Append. No. 3. 



