2 Essay on (he fF'ritings of Hesiod. 



That Hesiod and Homer, indeed, belonged to the same age and school 

 is proved by the genuine and inimitable internal evidence of style, by that 

 hoary down of antiquity, that ■xt'ovg Ap-^^aioTnvqQ, which must be familiar to 

 every one who has been accustomed to investigate the earliest poetical 

 remains of any ancient tribe ; whetlier of the Greek Aoioot, the northern 

 Scalds, or the Cambrian bards : for, amidst all the diversities of nations, 

 peoples, and languages, our nature is every where the same ; and the first 

 lispings of the muse have every where a strong resemblance. To this 

 internal and unsophisticated evidence, we may add the concurrent voice 

 of tradition ; which has ever represented Homer and Hesiod as contempo- 

 raries. Herodotus, the father of Greek history, (Euterpe,) mentions both 

 together ; and even gives the precedence to Hesiod, when he assigns both 

 as the great sources of Greek mythology, and places them about 400 years 

 before his own age. The later editions of those traditions, indeed, such as 

 the life of Homer attributed to the same Herodotus, (contradictory as it is 

 to his own genuine account of the date when that poet flourished,) and the 

 celebrated contest of Homer and Hesiod, are universally accounted by 

 every competent critic, to be the clumsy forgeries of some sophist* pro- 

 bably posterior to tlie age of Hadrian ; incorporating however, it may be, 

 some genuine fragments of a proverbial description, which had floated 

 down the stream of oral tradition, from the poetry of this early age.f 

 And sophisticated as these accounts ai'e, still the very foundation on which 

 they are built sufficiently attests the prevalent belief, that Homer and 

 Hesiod were of the same age j and must be allowed to possess some 

 weight in corroboration of the argument already adduced. And the gene- 

 ral tendency of this tradition appears to be in favour of ascribing to Hesiod 



* This contest is first mentioned by Plutarch, and there are several other author- 

 ities in the later grammarians and scholiasts, such as the scholia on Pindar and 

 Eustathius. 



t Such as the following : 



AvcpoQ ^iiv 'S.TttpavoQ TTaiSsQ' Uvpyoi Se TloXyjog' 

 iTTTTot c'av IlEOia KO(Ti.wg' tftjeg Se 6a\a<7<Tt]g- 

 XprifiaTa S'oikov at'itc Arap yepapoi BaciXijfe 

 H/iEvot tiv Ayopt], ico(TpoQ r'aXKoigiv opaa^ai- 

 A,t&ofi€jxa Se irvpog yepapwrepog oikoq iSea^at, 

 HpaTi -^i fiepio), oTTOTav vi(prj(n Kpoviiov. 



It is almost impossible for a poetical version to represent faithfully the naked 

 simplicity of the original, which forms its best title to be received as a genuine relic 

 of antiquit)' ; I must therefore content myself with jilaln prose. 



Children are the crown of a man, as towers of a town. 

 Horses are the decoration of the plain, as ships of the sea. 

 Wealth makes a house flourish ; venerable are Kings, 

 Sitting in the forum, glorious for others to behold. 

 With a blazing fire the house is more seemly to see. 

 On the wintry day, when Saturnian Jove sends snow. 



