1805.] Epigrams, Fragments, and FugitivePieces, from the Greek. 459 
Empedocles was loft in the crater of 
Mount Etna. Hefiod was murdered by 
his fecret enemies ; Archilochus and Iby- 
cus by banditti. Sappho threw herfelf 
from a precipice. Adichylus perithed by 
the fall of a tortoife. Anacreon (as may 
be expétted) owed his death to grapes. 
Cratinus and Terence experienced the 
fame fate with Menander. Seneca and 
Lucan, condemned to death by a tyrant, 
cut their veins, and died repeating their 
own verfes; and Petronius Arbiter met a 
fimilar cataftrophe. Lucretius, it is faid, 
wrote under the delirium of a philtre ad- 
miniftered by his miftrefs, and deftroyed 
himlelf -from-its effects. Poifon, though 
fwallowed under very different circum- 
ftances, cut fhort the days both of So- 
crates and Demofthenes ; and Cicero fell 
under the profeription of the Triumvi- 
rate. It is truly wonderful that fo many 
men, the profefled votaries of peace and 
retirement, fhould have met with fates fo 
widely different from that to which the 
common cafualties of life fhould feem to 
expofe them. 
Of Philemon, the fuccefsful rival of 
Menander, we know but little. He 
fzems to have paffed his life in the exer- 
cile of thofe focial virtues which fecure 
the affetion of intimates, but have little 
tendency to advancehim to notice. Thefe 
peaceful virtues would probably have con- 
figned the comic peet to obfcurity, had 
not his exigencies called out the powers 
he poffeffed to furmount thofe cbitacles 
which his inclination had oppofed, and 
pufhed him into aétive life. His ears 
could not have been deaf to the plaudits 
conferred on his performances, and fome 
fparks of ambition muft have been kept 
alive by perpetual rivalry with the great 
mafter of the fock. 
We have a picture of Sterne, drawn 
by himfelf, in the attitude of feeding an 
afs-with macaroons: ‘* And at this mo- 
ment,”” fays that {prightly and whimfical 
writer, ** that I am telling it, my heart 
{mites me that there was more of pleafantry 
in the conceit of feeing how an als would 
eat a macaroon, than of benevolence in 
giving him one, which prefided in the 
a&.’? It would be hard to fay what 
figure an afs would make while thus en- 
gaged; but we are told by Valerius Max- 
Imus that a fimilar entertainment caufed 
the death of Philemon. ‘This poet, on 
entering aroom to refrefh himfelf with 
fome figs, obferved that an afs had been 
before-hand with him, and was leifurely 
devouring them, one by one. Philemon, 
wifhing to complete the repalt, courte- 
oufly ordered a flave to prefent his dumb 
gueft with a goblet of wine. This cu- 
rious fympohum provoked the comedian 
to fucha fi of laughter, that he was fuf- 
focated in the ftrugele. 
Every anecdote of Philemon, down to 
the tragi-comic one which clofed his ex- 
iftence, recommends him to our efteem. 
He is faid to have poffefled infinite good- 
humour; and to the eafe and gaiety of his 
manners and amiable character he was, 
probably, more indebted fot his many 
triumphs over Menander than to his fupe- 
riority as a writer. Every thing feems to 
have been fo well tempered within him, 
all violent and malign paffions to have 
been held in fuch perfect \nbjeétion, and 
all the more engaging and eftimable qua- 
lities to have been allowed fuch free in- 
dulgence, that his conititution fuffered no 
violence from pent-up emotions, and his 
body no diminution of vigour from the 
jarricg, gloomy, or furious elements of 
his mind. He did not indulge in the lux- 
urtes of the table, which, as they pam- 
per, irritate, and enflame, are, at Icaft, 
one of the fources from which the moft 
dangerous diforders of temper, intellect, 
and conftitution, derive their grewth. 
Owing to thefe caufes, he reached the 
very advanced age of one hundred and 
one years. 
The fragments of Philemon that have 
come down to us befpeak a mind tranquil 
and unrufled, capable, from its intimacy 
with the human heart and all its intricacies, 
to diétate what is for the good of mankind, 
but content with gentle admonition and 
perfuafion. How amiable is the rebuke 
of one of his characters to a friend whe 
was detected in weeping, inftead of en- 
deavouring to redre{s a misfortune :—— 
If tears could med’cine human ills, and give 
The heart o’ercharged a {weet reftorative, 
Gold, jewels, {plendor, all we reckon dear, 
Were mean and worthlefs to a fingle tear. 
But ah! nor treafures bribe, nor raining eyes, 
Our firm inexorable deftinies-— 
Weep we or not, as fun fucceeds to fun, 
In the fame courfe our Fates unpitying run, 
Tears yet are ours whéene’er misfortunes 
refs ; 
And tho’ they fail to give the wifh’d redrefs, 
Long as their fruits the changing Seafons 
bring, 
Thefe bitter drops will flow from Sorrow’s 
fpring*. 
* The Fragment of this author, in the 
pafiage before us, confifts of two fpeeches by 
different charaéters ; but, in ordey to give it 
amore conne&ted form, I have united them 
fo as to form a fingle poem, 
4N2 
