{ 
1808.] 
friends would farnish you with a list, 
which no doubt wouid be very numerous, 
of those who have been thus selected. 
The list would also operate as an encou- 
ragement to those who may hereafter 
look forward with the hope of being dis- 
tinguished by episcopal patronage for 
their moral Bonu wat or professional at- 
talnments, Your’s, &c. 
H. B. 
yo eee ta 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
LYCZUM OF ANCIENT LITERA- 
TURE, — No. XV. 
HESIOD. 
HE lives of few persons are con- 
founded with so many uncertain- 
ties and fabulous relations as those of 
Homer and Hesiod. What may possibly 
be true, is often as much disputed as the 
most romantic parts of their stories. 
The difficulty of connecting what may be 
considered as history, with the improba- 
ble fictions which surround it, compels 
the inguirer at last to resort to some 
hypothesis of bis own, or he is lost amid 
the doubts and inferences of others, till 
conjecture itself is wearied, and curiosity 
exhausted. Nor is he always much as- 
‘sisted by the calculations of astronomers, 
or the opinions of critics. He who once 
establishes a position, after a long and 
elaborate discussion of his subject; is 
seldom willing to abandon it, because it 
differs from the positions of former wri- 
ters. He adopts, and is eager to circu- 
late an opinion which, after all, is per- 
haps equally erroneous. The revolu- 
tions of ages have added little, if any 
thing to our matenals for these remote 
disquisitions. The same contradictory 
authorities must be consulted, the same 
uncertain conclusions must be drawn. 
The most original thinker, who merely 
glances at these authorities, and deter- 
mines to form his opinion in spite of their 
discordant testimony, may excite sur- 
prise by the boldness of his specula- 
tions, and pleasure by the novelty of his 
hypothesis; but it must be remembered 
that they have no better foundation than 
the many that have gone before them, 
and that. where there is novelty, there is 
not always truth. Instead therefore of 
entering into the wide and boundless 
field of conjecture, we shall content our- 
elves with selecting as our guides, those 
@ appear to present the most rational 
Satisfactory account of Hesiod ; 
o our classical readers to pur- 
quiry, and suggesting, in our 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature— Hesiod. 
119 
references, the authors where informa- 
tion is most likely to be obtained. We 
are so far fortunate in this instance, that 
Hesiod has, in bis writings, presented us 
with many circumstances of himself and 
family, such as the condition of his 
father, the place of his birth, and the ex~ 
tent of his travels; and from these, 
though he has not ‘precisely fixed the 
period of his existence, there is sufficient 
to collect, that he was one of the earliest 
writers of whom we have any account. 
We are told by him in the second 
book of his ‘ Works and Days,’ that his 
father was an inhabitant of Cuma, in one 
of the Acohan isles, from whence he re- 
moved to Ascra, a village in Beeotia, at 
the foot of Mount Helicon,* which was 
most probably the place of his birth, 
though Suidas, Lil. Gyraldus, Fabricius, 
and others, have placed it at Cuma. 
Hesiod himself appears, intentionally, to 
have prevented any mistake respecting 
the place of his nativity, for he tells us 
positively in the same book, that he never 
was but once at sea, and that ina voy- 
age from Aulis, a sea-port in Beotia, to 
the island of Pubes This, connected 
with the former passage, should leave us 
little doubt concerning his country. This 
‘information, however, may be suspected 
of having been given, not so much from 
kindness to future inquirers, as from the 
opportunity it cave him of abusing a spot 
where he had “suffered considerable in- 
jury by the unjust imposition of a fine.f 
From Suidas, we collect that the names 
of his parents were Dius and Pycimene, 
though for the name of his father we 
have no authority in any part of his 
writings that are extant. It is remark= 
able indeed that in addressing his bro- 
ther Perses, he calls him dsov yerog, but if 
he intended to designate him as the son, 
or of the race of Dios, he would have 
used Asoyevns, Or Asveyevos. But he per- 
haps meant only to compliment him as 
of race divine. Le Clerc has observed 
of this passage, that the ancient poets 
were always fond of the epithet divine, 
and Homer has applied it-even to the 
swihe-herd of Ulysses. The supposed 
meanness of Hestod’s birth and manner 
of life, is therefore no argument against 
the probabilizy of this reading, which is 
supported by Tzetzes,t Valla, and Frisius, 
co AREER SSeS ET Sibi se ems OR 
* Strabo Geogr. lib. 13. Braudrand George 
Bontillier, Geog. Anc. et Mod. 119. 
f Vell. Paterc. lib. i. cap. 7. 
ft Vid, Tzetzes Sckol. in ised p- 2, Ed. 
Heins. 
who 
