180g. ] 
birth, the nymphs danced; Pan, himself, 
leaped for joy; and that, when a child, 
the bees settled upon his lips, and fed 
him with thetr honey; it may be inferred, 
that his genius for Lyric verse declared 
itself in early youth. It does not ap- 
pear, that his education was attended 
with any remarkable advantages; and 
from this circumstance, he himself ase 
Sumes the greater merit; boasting that 
his genius was the genuine offspring of 
nature; while his rivals, owed all their 
reputation to their laborious industry. 
TF 0psG 0 BoA- 
sAad ede? hua: 
peadivles de AaCeos 
WAVYMAT TIA, KOELKES BS 
axeaile yagudloy 
Aide eos oevixa Oevov. 
He only, in whose ample breast, 
Nature hath true inherent génius pour’d, 
The praise of wisdom may contest ; 
Net they, who, with loquacious learning 
Stor’d, s 
Like crows, and chattering jays, with 
clamorous cries, 
Pursue the bird of Jove, that sails along the 
~ Skies 
Considering the great eminence of 
Pindar in his own time, and the high 
rank he still holds in ancient hterature, 
the: memorials of his life are inconceiv- 
ably scanty. Very few anecdotes are 
extant, by which we can fill up the in- 
terval between his birth and his death. 
He appears to have been held in Ingh 
‘estimation by the princes and states of 
Greece. In somie, this respect amounted 
almost to adoration. The oracle at 
Delphos commanded the people to 
present to the poet a proportion of the 
first fruits; thus placing him upon an 
equality with the gods. Pausamias 
meutions an iron stool in the temple, 
upon which he was accustomed to sit, 
when he recited his verses in honour of. 
Apollo: and this was preserved, with 
the greatest veneration, for some cen- 
turies after his death.* By a fatality 
not uncommon with great characters, he 
was less considered in his native city, 
than by the rest of Greece. It is sup- 
posed, that he offended his countrymen, 
by praising the Athenians, their mortal 
enemies. For this public affront to the 
state, he was heavily fined; while the 
hberal and enlightened Athenians pre- 
sented him with a sum of money, which 
doubled that to which he had been 
amerced; and honoured him with a noble 
* Pausan in Phocid. p. 656. 
Monruty Mac. No. 183, 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature—No. XXIII. 
ct 
statue, when it was denied him by the 
ungrateful Thebans. This asperity, on 
their part, also exposed hifn to'the in- 
dignity of a defeat, in a poetical contest 
with the celebrated Corinna, upon whom 
the laurel was bestowed. Hiero.of 
Syracuse appears to have been his par-=' 
ticular patron; and it would seem from 
the second Pyth. that he visited the 
court of that prince. But for this, there 
is no other authority than the uncertain 
inference whicli may be drawn from the 
ode alluded to. The latter part of his 
life was probably spent in ease and 
tranquillity, in his native city; as faras 
we may judge from the 7tli [sthm. Ode, 
where he defends his retired way of 
living, and apologizes for not pursuing 
the more active and perilous career of 
arms. His death was sudden, and whea 
he had only attained bis 55th year. It 
is well known, that, when Thebes was 
sacked by the soldiers of Alexander, he 
ordered them to. spare the house in 
which Pindar had resided; and when 
Pausanias’ wrote, who lived under the 
Emperor Antoninus, its ruins were sull 
visible,* 
The works which remain of this illus- 
tridus poet, consist of four books of odes, 
or triumphal hymns; each of which de- 
rives its title from the games which it 
celebrates; such as the Olympic, the 
Pythian, the Nemzan, and the Isthmian, 
He is suppased to have also written 
Tragedies, Pans, Dithyrambics, Epics, 
Epigrams, and other poems; in the 
whole, seventeen distinct works. It may 
be presumed, therefore, that the high 
honours which he received’ during his 
life, and particularly those froin the 
Delphic oracle, were not conferred 
upon him, on account of the odes which 
have descended to us; but for other | 
productions, of a still higher character, 
such as his hymns to the several deities 
of the world. It is probable, that Pin- 
dar himself jitthe expected that his res 
putation with posterity would depend 
upon occasional tributes of praise to the 
conquerors in the Grecian games. Such, 
however, is the case: by these odes, we 
are now left to judge of his metit, as they 
are the only living evidences of his cha- 
racter aS a poet. 
It may be proper, briefly to notice the 
octasions, upon which these odes were 
* Pausan. in Beot. p. 578.—Plutarch has 
preserved the following Epitaph upon Pindar: 
“Agiceves hy Eevoigw avng £00 Kal pidog dooict ame 
C recited, 
