HERVEY HESIOD. 



117 



the troubles in Holland, and laboured to promote the 

 balance of power in Europe. But his influence 

 gradually diminished, and, in 1791, he asked permis- 

 sion to retire, which was refused, though he was 

 relieved of some of his offices. He now confined 

 himself almost entirely to the superintendence of the 

 academy and the cultivation of silk. When the 

 second partition of Poland took place, in 1793, and 

 the politics of Prussia, by her participation in the 

 coalition against France, had placed her in a critical 

 situation, he again offered his services, in 1794. His 

 offer was declined, and, eleven months after, he died. 

 The German literature and language received great 

 attention from him a circumstance the more deserv- 

 ing of mention, as Frederic utterly disregarded, or 

 rather despised them. He improved the condition of 

 the country schools, which had been much neglected. 

 Besides the culture of silk, he devoted himself, in his 

 retirement, to the improvement of the agriculture of 

 his country. 



HERVEY, JAMES, a pious and popular divine of 

 the church of England, was born at Hardingstone, 

 near Northampton, in 1713, and was sent to Lincoln 

 college, Oxford. Having taken orders, he retired, 

 in 1736, to the curacy of Dummer, in Hampshire. 

 In 1738, he quitted Dummer to reside at Stoke abbey, 

 in Devonshire. During his residence in Devonshire, 

 he planned his Meditations; and an excursion to 

 Killiiimpton, in Cornwall, occasioned him to lay the 

 scene of his Meditations among the tombs in the 

 church of that place. In 1743, he became curate to 

 his father, then possessing the living of Weston Favell, 

 and, on the death of the latter, he succeeded him in 

 his livings, both of Weston and Collingtree. He 

 died in 1758, in the forty-fifth year of his age. The 

 moral character of this conscientious divine was most 

 exemplary ; his temper was disinterested, placid, and 

 humble, and in benevolence and charity he was sur- 

 passed by none with equally bounded means. The 

 style of his writings is flowery ; and hence his great 

 popularity among readers who possess little refine- 

 ment of taste. Besides his Meditations, he is the 

 author of several other works, which are included in 

 the genuine edition ot his \Vorks, 6 vols., 8vo. 



HESIOD ; one of the oldest poets of Greece ; a 

 native of Cumas in ^Eolia, a province of Asia Minor. 

 While he was a boy, he left his native country and 

 settled in Ascra, a village of Boeotia, at the foot of 

 mount Helicon, whence he is called the Ascraean. 

 According to some authorities, he practised, in 

 Acarnania, the art of divination, which, especially 

 in Boeotia, was closely connected with poetry. 

 Others say he was a priest in the temple of the 

 muses on mount Helicon: if this were the case, he 

 might easily have practised both poetry and divina- 

 tion together. The latter part of his life he spent at 

 Locris, and was at last murdered by two Locrians, 

 who suspected him of unlawful intercourse with their 

 sister. His body was thrown into the sea, and 

 carried to the shore by dolphins. This led to the 

 detection of the murderers, who were apprehended 

 and punished. Such is the tradition; but little is 

 known of Hesiod with certainty. Even the age in 

 which he lived cannot be precisely determined. A 

 very common tradition relates that, in a poetical 

 contest with Homer, at Chalcis, he came off victori- 

 ous. Herodotus calls him a contemporary of Homer, 

 and says they lived 400 years before himself (about 

 900 B. C.). In his Works and Days (172), Hesiod 

 says that he belonged to the period immediately 

 following the Trojan war ; but the passage is sus- 

 pected by critics, and there are many reasons for 

 supposing tliat he lived at a later period. 



According to John Tzetzes, sixteen works have 

 been attributed to Hesiod. Of thirteen we know 



only the titles; and our judgment of him must, of 

 course, be formed solely on the three which remain. 

 These are the Theogony, a collection of the oldest 

 fables concerning the birth and achievements of the 

 gods, arranged so as to form a connected whole. 

 It is the most important and difficult of all his works. 

 With this was probably connected the Catalogue of 

 Women, to the fourth book of which, entitled the 

 iioiai fttyaKeu, the second fragment (the Shield of 

 Hercules) must have belonged. It is evidently com- 

 posed of two pieces, very different from each other, 

 and which can hardly be regarded as the work of one 

 author. Editions of it have been published by C. F. 

 Heinrich (Breslau, 1802; and Bonn, 1819). The 

 contents of the Theogony are borrowed from earlier 

 cosmogonies and theogonies, and the traces of the 

 manner in which it was composed are very evident: 

 there is a difference in the mythology, which is 

 sometimes rude and imperfectly developed, and 

 sometimes more perfect and refined; and a difference 

 in the narration, which is sometimes short and plain, 

 and sometimes diffuse and elegant. The frequent 

 repetitions of the same fable, with variations, led to 

 many contradictions ; the additions and interpolations 

 by later writers destroyed the harmony of the style. 

 (See Heyne, De Theogonia ab Hesiodo condifa, in the 

 Comment. Soc. Eeg. Gott., vol. 2, 1779; Wolfe's 

 edition, Halle, 1783; Letters on Homer and Hesiod, 

 by Hermann and Creuzer, 1817). The third frag- 

 ment is a didactic poem, Works and Days, in Greek 

 and German, by J. D. Hartmann, accompanied with 

 notes and illustrations by L. Wachler (Lemgo, 1792). 

 It treats of agriculture, the choice of days, &c., with 

 prudential precepts concerning education, domestic 

 economy, navigation, &c. In this work, the only 

 one, according to Pausanias, which the Boeotians 

 acknowledged as the genuine production of Hesiod 

 (except the first ten verses, which they rejected), we 

 learn most of his life and character. He and his 

 brother Perses lived with their father at Ascra, 

 engaged in cultivating the soil and tending cattle. 

 After the death of their father, the estate was divided 

 between them; but unjust judges deprived the poet 

 of half his share, and assigned it to his avaricious, 

 and, at the same time, prodigal brother. Nothing 

 remained for him to do but to husband carefully 

 what remained; and he seems to have been a suc- 

 cessful economist. His brother's property, on the 

 contrary, was wasted by neglect and indolence, and 

 lawsuits and corruption completed his ruin. 



It is not to be denied that the work of Hesiod 

 contains many repetitions, some of whicli are charge- 

 able to the simplicity of the age when it was written, 

 and others to the connexion of the several parts, 

 which were not originally intended to form a single 

 poem. The abruptness in the transitions is to be 

 attributed to the same cause. It is difficult to con- 

 tradict these judgments. If Hesiod be compared 

 with Homer, he is found inferior in epic fulness. 

 He is apt to crowd together things different in char- 

 acter, and to lean to a didactic style. The poetry is 

 often overlaid by the reflections ; and it is destitute 

 of the fire and vigour which breathe in every part oi 

 Homer. If the poetry of each is regarded in reference 

 to the degree of refinement of the age in which it was 

 written, the notions of Hesiod are found to be similar 

 to those of Homer. They are much alike in their 

 estimation of vice and virtue; they equally insist on 

 the practice of justice, the sacredness of an oath, 

 and the laws of hospitality. Fear of the anger of 

 Jove leads them both to forgive their enemies, but 

 only in consideration of suitable satisfaction. But 

 Hesiod's perpetual complaints of the rapacity of 

 kings, and their unjust decisions, and his bitter 

 reflections upon the female sex, have reference to a 



