144 



to have poflefl copioufnefs, grace, and a trae poetical fpirit. He is 

 placed in the fame degree of eminence, among amatory writers^ that 

 Homer holds among the ancient bards of epic fong. He miifl: have 

 painted the feducing emotions of love in the moft glowing colours, 

 and with a mailer's hand ; fmce the bed judge imaginable fays, 



" Plus in aniore valet Mimnermi, 

 " Verfus Homero. 



Propcrlius, L, 4, Eleg. 



It is faid by So/inus, that the AJiatics were as remarkable for genius 

 as for luxury. " Ingenia Afiatica inclyta per gentes fecere poet« 

 " Anacreon, Mimnenmis, et Antimachus." Nor is it furprifing. Afta 

 Minor was the country on earth the moft beautiful, the moft diver- 

 iified, the moft fufceptible of improvement, and moft capable of fup- 

 porting a great population. No country has coafts more winding, or 

 more numerous, fafe and fpacious harbours. 



Anacreon, the voluptuous, the elegant and amorous Anacreon, was 

 another offspring and ornament of that charming region, Ionia, in which 

 every thing refpired voluptuoufnefs. He was born at Teios, about two 

 ages fubfequent to Mimnermus. With firailar talents and propenfities 

 to thofe of that mafter of love and poetry, he felt all the force of 

 the climate, all the influence of the moral caufes, that prevailed in Ionia, 

 to relax the virtue, and fafcinate the mind. " Have we not felt," fays 

 Barthelemy* "a delicious languor infinuate itfelf into our fouls, and throw 

 " us, if I may fo fpeak, into the intoxication of happinefs ? Such is 

 " the influence of the climate of Ionia, and as moral caufes, far from 

 " correfting, have only tended to encreafe it, the lonians are become 

 " the moft effeminate, but, at the fame time, are to be numbered 

 " among the moft amiable people of Greece." The gay and amorous 

 difpofition, and the love of pleafure infufed into the poet at his birth, 

 foftered by every breath he drew, in that bewitching climate, confirmed 

 by education, and the example of all around him in his native country, 



were 



■* Travels of Anacharfis, fpeaking in the perfoD of the philofopher. 



