LANGUAGE. 
178 
rough and unpolifhect; becanfe, like the ancient Romans, 
the braveft men were more difpofed to act than to fpeak. 
Every language will take its colour from the temper and 
charafler of thofe who employ it; and, had it not been 
owing to one clafs of men, the Greek tongue would have 
continued equally rough to the era of Homer as it had 
been a century after the arrival of the Pelafgi. 
There lias appeared among barbarous or half-civilized 
people a defcription of men whofe profellion it has been 
to frequent the houfes or palaces of the great, in order to 
celebrate their achievements, or tbofe of their anceltors, 
in the fublimeft (trains of heroic poetry. Accordingly, 
we find that the Germans had their bards , the Gauls their 
fads, the Scandinavians their fcalds, the Ivi(h tht\r fileas, 
all retained for that very purpofe. They lived with their 
chieftains or patrons; attended them to battle; were wit- 
neffes of their heroic deeds; animated them with martial 
(trains; and celebrated their prowefs, if they proved vic¬ 
torious ; or, if they fell, railed the fong of woe, and 
chanted the mournful dirge over their fepulchres. Thefe 
bards were always both poets and mulicians. Their per- 
fons were held facred and inviolable. They attended pub¬ 
lic entertainments, and appeared in all national conven¬ 
tions. The chief of them were employed in the temples 
of the gods ; and the lei's illuftrious, like our minftrels of 
old, ftrolled about from place to place, and exerciled their 
functions wherever they found employment. Among the 
ancient Greeks there was a numerous tribe of men of the 
very fame defcription, who were at once poets and mufi- 
cians, and whofe office it was to celebrate the praifes of 
the great, and to tranfmit their exploits to poiterity in 
the molt exaggerated encomiums. Thefe poetical va¬ 
grants were ftyled aofo i, or fongfters. Some of thefe lived 
in the houfes of great men ; while others, lefs (kilful or 
lefs fortunate, ltrolled about tire country in the manner 
above defcribed. The more illuftrious of thefe, who were 
retained in the temples of the gods, were certainly the 
firft improvers of the language of the Greeks. Among 
the Hebrews we find the firft poetical compofitions were 
hymns in honour of Jehovah, and among the Pagans the 
fame praftice was eftablilhed. In Greece, when all was 
confufion and dc-vaftation, the temples of the gods were 
field facred and inviolable. There the acAoi improved 
their talents, and formed religious anthems on thofe very 
models which their progenitors had chanted in the eaft. 
The language of the Greeks was yet rugged and unmel¬ 
lowed -. their firft care was to render it more loft and more 
flexible. They enriched it with vocables fuited to the 
offices ©f religion ; and thefe, we imagine, were chiefly 
•imported from the eaft. Homer every where mentions a 
diftinffion between the language of gods and men. The 
language of gods imports the oriental terms retained in 
the temples, and ufed in treating of the ceremonies of re¬ 
ligion; the language of men intimates the ordinary civil 
dialect which fprung from the mixed dialects of the coun¬ 
try. The priefts, no doubt, concurred in promoting this 
noble and important purpofe. From this fource the drol¬ 
ling aci&oi drew the rudiments of their art; and from thefe 
la ft the vulgar deduced the elements of the polifhed ftyle. 
To thefe cuoiooi of the fuperior order we would afcribe 
thofe changes mentioned in the preceding part of this in¬ 
quiry, by which the Greek tongue acquired that variety 
and flexibility, from which two qualities it has derived a 
great (hare of that eafe, beauty, and verlatility, by which 
it now furpaffes mod other languages. 
We are told that the pradlice of writing in verfe was 
antecedent to the date of profaic compofition. Here, then, 
the aoioci and the minifters of religion chiefly difplayed 
their (kill and difcernment. By a judicious mixture of 
dhort and long fyllables; by a jumSlion of confonants 
which naturally Hide into each other; by a careful atten¬ 
tion to the rhythm, or harmony refulting from the com¬ 
bination of the fyllables of the whole line, they completed 
Vhe metrical tone of the verfe, guided by that delicacy of 
mufical feeling of which they were pofleffed before rules 
of profody were known among men. Verfes, however* 
were as yet clumfy and irregular, as the quantity of vowels 
was not duly afcertained, and the collifion of heteroge¬ 
neous confonants not always avoided. Probably thefe- 
primitive verfes differed as widely from the finiftied (trains 
of Homer and his fucceffors, as thofe of Chaucer and 
Spenfer do from the fmooth polifhed lines of Dryden and 
Pope. 
The Grecian poets, however, enjoyed another advan¬ 
tage which that clafs of waiters have feldom pofleffed, 
which arofe from the different dialects into which their 
language was divided. All thofe dialedts were adopted 
indifferently by the prince of poets; a circumftance which 
enabled him to take advantage of any word from any dia¬ 
led:, provided it fuited his purpofe. This, at the fame 
time that it rendered verfification eafy, diffufed an agree¬ 
able variety over his compofition. He even accommo¬ 
dated words from Macedonia, Epirus, and Illyricum, to 
the purpofes of his verfification. Befides, the laws of 
quantity u’ere not then clearly afcertained ; a circumftance 
which afforded him another convenience. Succeeding 
poets did not enjoy thefe advantages, and confequently 
have been more circumfcribed both in their didion and 
numbers. 
The Greek language, as is generally known, was di¬ 
vided into many different dialeds. Every fept, or petty 
canton, had fome peculiar forms of fpeech which diftin- 
guilhed it from the others. There were, however, four 
different dialedical variations which carried it overall the 
others. Thefe were the Attic, Ionic, Alolic, and Do¬ 
ric. Thefe four dialeds originated from the different 
countries in the eaft from which the tribes refpedively 
emigrated. The Attics confrfted, ift, of the barbarous 
aborigines; zd, of an adventitious colony of Egyptian. 
Sa'ites ; 3d, a branch of Ionians from the coaft of Palef- 
tine. Thefe laft formed the old Ionian dialect, from which 
fprung the Attic and modern Ionic. The iEolians emi¬ 
grated from a different quarter of the fame coaft ; the in¬ 
habitants of which were a remnant of the old Canaanites, 
and confequently different in dialed from the turn firft- 
mentioned colonies. The Dores fprang from an unpo¬ 
lifhed race of purple-fifhers on the fame coaft, and confe¬ 
quently fpoke a dialed more coarfe and ruftic than any 
of the reft. Thefe four nations emigrated from different 
regions ; a circumftance which probably laid the founda¬ 
tion of the different dialeds by which they were after¬ 
wards diftinguifhed. It is impoffible in this fhort (ketch 
to exhibit an exad view of the diftinguifhing features of 
each dialed. We (hall content ourfelves with a few ob- 
fervations. 
The Athenians, being an adive, briflc, volatile, race, 
delighted in contradions. Their ftyle was molt exqui- 
fttely polifhed. The mod celebrated authors who wrote 
in that dialed were Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon, De- 
mofthenes, and the other orators ; ftEfchylus, Euripides, 
Sophocles, Ariftophanes, Menander, Diphilus, with the 
other comic and tragic poets. That dialed was either 
ancient or modern. The ancient Attic was the fame with 
the Ionic. 
The Ionic, as was faid, was the ancient Attic ; but, 
when that nation emigrated from Attica, and fettled on 
the coaft of Afia Minor, they mingled with the Carians 
and Pelafgi, and of courfe adopted a number of their vo¬ 
cables. They were an indolent, luxurious, and diffolute, 
people ; of courfe their ftyle was indeed eafy and flowing, 
but verbofe, redundant, and without nerves. This, how¬ 
ever, is the leading ftyle in Homer; and after him a pro¬ 
digious number of writers on every fubjeft have ufed the 
fame dialed!, fuch as Herodotus of Halicarnaffus, the cele¬ 
brated hiftorian ; Ctefias of Cnidus, the hiftorian of Per- 
fia.and India; Hecatseus of Miletus; Megafthenes the 
hiftorian, who lived under Seleucus Nicator; Hippocrates, 
the celebrated phyfician of Coos ; Hellanicus, the hifto¬ 
rian often mentioned with honour by Polybius ; Ana¬ 
creon of Teia, Alcaeus, Sappho of Lelbos, excellent poets; 
Pherecydes 
