378 COSMOS. 



and fatal passion. Euripides * 4 also delights in picturesque 

 descriptions of " the pastures of Messenia and Laconia, which 

 under an ever mild sky, are refreshed by a thousand fountains, 

 and by the waters of the beautiful Pamisos." 



Bucolic poetry, which originated in the plains of Sicily, 

 and popularly inclined to the dramatic, has been, justly termed 

 a transitional form. Its pastoral epics describe on a small 

 scale human beings rather than natural scenery; and in this 

 form it appears in its greatest perfection in the writings of 

 Theocritus. A soft elegiac element is peculiar to the idyl, 

 as if it had emanated from " the longing for some lost idea," 

 as if in the breast of mankind, a certain touch of melancholy 

 was ever mingled w r ith the deep feelings awakened by the 

 aspect of nature. 



True Hellenic poetry expired with the freedom of the 

 Greeks, and became descriptive, didactic, and instructive. 

 Astronomy, geography, hunting, and fishing, were converted 

 in the time of Alexander into objects of poetic consideration, 

 and often adorned with a remarkable degree of metrical 

 skill. The forms and habits of animals are depicted with 

 grace, and not unfrequently with such accuracy that the par- 

 ticular genera or even species may be recognized by the 

 classifying naturalist of the present day. All these compo- 

 sitions are, however, wholly wanting in that inner life that 

 inspired contemplation of nature by which the external world 

 becomes to the poet, almost unconsciously to himself, a sub- 

 ject of his imagination. The preponderance of the descrip- 

 tive element shows itself in the forty-eight cantos of the 

 Dionysiaca of the Egyptian Nonnus, which are remarkable 

 for their skilfully artistical versification. The poet dwells 

 with pleasure on the delineation of great convulsions of 

 nature ; he makes a fire kindled by lightning on the woody 

 banks of the Hydaspes, burn up even the fishes in the bed of 



* According to Strabo (lib. viii. p. 36G, Casaub.), who accuses the 

 tragedian of giving a geographically incorrect boundary to Elis. This 

 beautiful passage of Euripides occurs in the Cresphontes. The de- 

 scription of the excellence of the district of Messenia, is intimately 

 connected with the exposition of its political relations, as, for instance, 

 the division of the land amongst the Heraclidae. The delineation of 

 nature is, therefore, here too, as Bockh ingeniously remarks, associated 

 with human interests. 



