WEST OF ENGLAND JOURNAL 



BgoiB^ei i^mm OTii^Tyi^iia 



No. IV. OCTOBER, 1835. Vol. I. 



PART II.— LITERATURE. 



ESSAY ON THE WRITINGS OF HESIOD, 



PRINCIPALLY COMPILED FROM SOME MS. LECTURES DELIVERED AT OXFORD 

 BY THE REV. J. J. CONYBEARE, PROFESSOR OF POETRY. 



Communicated ly Ms brother, the Rev. fF, D. Conybeare. 



ON THE THEOGONY. 



( Concluded from p. 89. J 



At verse 521, the brief allusions and dry catalogue of mythical names, 

 which have occupied so large a portion of the Theogony, are succeeded by 

 more detailed narratives of the story of Prometheus, and of the war of the 

 Titans, and of Tvphoeus, against Jupiter, and the description of Tartarus. 

 The first portion has indeed still very little of poetical merit, but to the 

 latter the fame of Hesiod, as one of the most distinguished of the early 

 poets, is principally to be ascribed. 



1. Prometheus is introduced in connection with the genealogical series, 

 which the poet has up to this point pursued, among the progeny of lapetus 

 and Clymcnc. His story may be very probably conjectured to have had 

 its original foundation in an allegorical representation of the inventive 

 power of human sagacity as applied to tiie arts, of which the use of fire 

 is the most essential and universal requisite; and by Pandora and the evils 

 which followed in her train, we may perhaps conceive the luxuries and 

 evils introduced by this artificial state of society to have been indicated. 

 But whatever may have been the original intention of the legend, it had 

 become in the time of Hesiod overlaid and obscured by details merely 

 introduced as fabulous embellibhmentb of the narrative. 



No. 4.— Vol. I. 8* 



