Essay on the fFritings of Hesiod. 3 



the prior antiquity ; or, at the very latest, making him coutemporary with 

 Homer. The more critically we enquire, we shall find additional reason 

 to assent to their common age, and place it about 900 years before the 

 Christian aera. (See the Excursus of Heyne, at the end of his edition of 

 Homer.) As it has been well argued, that the constant tradition which 

 represents Homer to have been a native of the Ionian colonies, implies 

 that his age must have been subsequent to the Ionic emigration, itself the 

 result of the convulsions which arose in Greece on the re-establishment of 

 the dynasty of the Heraclaidas, iu the Peloponnesus j a similar argument 

 will equally apply to Hesiod, who informs us, with much simplicity, that 

 his father, originally a settler in the QDoliau colony of Camoe, had been 

 induced by poverty to return to Greece, and establish himself at Ascra, in 

 Boeotia, at the foot of Helicon, of which place Hesiod himself was a native, 

 although he describes it in no very complimentary terms, as : — 



AarKpt] Xtifia kuki], Stpti apyaXii], ovce ttot' tcrSrXi]. 

 Ascra, bad in winter, terrible in summer, nor ever good. 



We may observe, en passant, that both these localities, the paternal 

 residence in an OEolian colony, and the Boeotian abode of the poet him- 

 self, would have led us rather to expect a Doric dialect than the pure Ionic 

 which he employs. We must probably suppose, that in this early age the 

 Ionic tribes of Attica spread themselves farther to the north-west, and 

 occupied the Heliconian vale of Ascra, which is iu truth not very remote 

 from their subsequent frontier. 



Before proceeding to consider, then, the remains of one of these first 

 Corypha?i of the extant poetical literature of Greece, we are naturally 

 invited to premise a few general observations on the early history and 

 condition of this art, as it originally flourished amongst that surprising 

 people, destined almost at once, as it seems, to carry it to a pitch of per- 

 fection unsurpassed, if not unrivalled, by any subsequent efforts of human 

 genius; for while, as we have observed, there is a peculiar tone of sim- 

 plicity, and especially of the absence of every kind of sentimental afiecta- 

 tion, which aflixes a sufficiently characteristic distinctive mark to the early 

 poetry of Greece, in common with the most ancient minstrelsy of every 

 other language, yet is it strongly distinguished by the advanced state of 

 perfcctioti displayed in the majestic force and dignity of its phraseology, 

 the richness and effect of its characteristic and picturesque compound 

 epithets, and in the finished art and rich and varied harmony of its metrical 

 system, from any tiling which we can trace in the poetical progress of 

 other nations ; where, as in Nicvius and Ennius in Roman literature, and 

 in the rude metrical romances which in our own language preceded our 

 first true poet Chaucer, we find the muse lisping in metre indeed, but in 

 style and language of the most rude and barbarous description. Doubtless, 

 indeed, Greece must liavc produced many ruder predecessors of the more 



