4 Essay on the fFrltings of Hes'tod. 



gifted bards of Boeotian Ascra and the Ionian Meles j but of these earlier 

 sons of song etiam periere ruince : as it has not been permitted to observe 

 the Nile as a nascent brook, so our very first view of the flowing stream 

 of Grecian poetry is caught in the full glory of its flood. 



We cannot doubt indeed from the nature and necessity of the thing, and 

 the frequent mention in Homer and Hesiod of poets, AOIAOI, as a pro- 

 fession flourishing in considerable numbers and high esteem and honcur, 

 that the art must already have been cultivated through many previous ages 

 and by a long succession of bards. A list of some seventy such names has 

 indeed floated down the stream of tradition,* but the whole subject is so 

 obscure and mixed with such gross fable, that it were waste of time to 

 pursue it in any detail. We may allow indeed Orpheus to have really 

 flourished as a distinguished poet and legislator, but the remains vulgarly 

 ascribed to him cannot for a moment stand tlie test of critical examination, 

 and have been clearly demonstrated the supposititious figments of a far 

 later age; nor are we more fortunate with regard to the works of that 

 Linus, whom Hesiod himself appears to have celebrated. 



'Ov di] o<Toi (ipoToi uaiv aoidoi Kat KiOapi'^ai 

 TlavreQ fiev Qpip'ovaiv iv EiXaTrtvatj Kai Hopraig. 



" Whom at high feasts — around the social hoard 

 Each brother bard and minstrel still deplores." 



Still less need we dwell on the idle report concerning the poetesses 

 Daphne and Phantasia,t said to have been the more immediate guides of 

 Homer himself, by writers whom we must regard rather as the compilers 

 of tales than composers of true history. 



But although it were thus hopeless to attempt to retrace the previous 

 history of Greek poetry, still it will be very necessary to take a brief 

 survey of the notices preserved to us concerning the state and circum- 

 stances of that poetry, as it existed in the age of Homer and Hesiod, 

 which we shall find to throw important light, not only on the condition in 

 which their remains have descended to us, but even on many points con- 

 nected with the style of their original composition. 



The common reader may be perhaps surprised to learn, that it still re- 



* See this list in the first chapter of Fahricius Bib. Grace. 



f Daphne, an imaginary daughter of Tiresias, is said by Diodorus Siculus, lib. IV. 

 to have resided at Delphi, and to have flourished as a distinguished prophetess and 

 poetess, having furnished many of the materials which Homer appropriated to adorn 

 his own epics ; and Photius and Eustathius tell us, that Phantasia, a native of 

 Memphis, composed distinct epics on the very subjects of the Iliad and Odyssey, and 

 deposited them in the Memphian temple of Vulcan, to which Homer obtained access, 

 and pirated copies through the interest of one of the sacred scribes. We must un- 

 doubtedly regret, that stern criticism will not allow our gallantry to look to these 

 ladies, as in truth the prime sources whence have descended to us all the gifts of the 

 muses, to whom we so properly assign the same sex, and so to restore to that sex an 

 honour which would thus appear to have been only pirated by the " usurper man." 



