WEST OF ENGLAND JOURNAL 



g@Q[i[i^(gi /^m® [LOTi[^T[yi[sg<. 



No. I. JANUARY, 1835. Vol. I. 



PART II.— LITERATURE. 

 ESSAY ON THE WRITINGS OF HESIOD, 



PRINCIPALLY COMPILED FROM SOME MS. LECTURES DELIVERED AT OXFORD 

 BV THE REV. J. J. CONYBEARE, PROFESSOR OF POETRY.* 



Communicated by his brother, the Rev. fV. D. Conybeare. 



INTRODUCTION ON THE EARLY HISTORY OF GREEK POETRY 

 GENERALLY. 



In introducing the classical department of a new journal. It seems desi- 

 rable to abstain on the one hand from points of more minute and recondite 

 critical enquiry, little interesting to the general scholar ; and on the other 

 from subjects so trite and familiar to his most ordinary studies, that in our 

 cursory observations we must altogether despair of at all enlarging the 

 bounds of his previous information. If we would undertake, then, to illus- 

 trate the origin and early progress of Greek poetry, Hesiod affords us 

 exactly such a middle station, as on an occasion like the present we should 

 desire. 



The great prince and parent of that poetry, 



E$ 'uirep jEVEtjiQ iravrtaat. rervKrai, 



is a subject far too familiar, to require or admit additional illustration. 

 We may add that our present subject will equally lead us to the elucidation 

 of the very earliest period of Grecian poetry, as far as its remains have 

 descended to us. 



• The original ig in the purest and most elegant Latin. It will at once be per- 

 ceived that I have, while availing myself of these stores, necessarily adopted the 

 style which appeared to mo best calculated for a popular journal ; and it should be 

 added, that a majority of the subjects, of which I have in tliis introductory essay 

 judged it expedient to enter into a somewhat full exposition, are only very briefly 

 alluded to in the original. 



No. I.— Vol. I. B * 



