And flowers that decked her grove: And, rising from the unconscious brine, On Arethusa's breast divine

Receives the meed of love.

'Tis thus with soft bewitching skill
The childish god deludes our will,
And triumphs o'er our pride;
The mighty river owns his force,
Bends to the sway his winding course,
And dives beneath the tide."

CAPRICIOUS LOVE.

"Pan sighs for Echo o'er the lawn;
Sweet Echo loves the dancing Faun;
The dancing Faun fair Lyda charms;
As Echo Pan's soft bosom warms,
So for the Faun sweet Echo burns;
Thus all inconstant in their turns,
Both fondly woo, are fondly wooed,
Pursue, and are themselves pursued.
Ye scornful nymphs and swains, I tell
This truth to you; pray, mark it well;
If to your lovers kind you prove

-Bland.

You'll gain the hearts of those you love."-Fawkes.

THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY.

As with Pindar and his great contemporaries had died. the golden age of Grecian poetry, so with Bion and Moschus its silver age may be said to have perished. Men continued to write verses, but their works were not instinct with poetry of the kind which the world willingly lets live.

During the succeeding half century a number of epigrammatic poets flourished. Such verses as they left of any special value are included in the Greek Anthologies, which comprise collections of short poems, principally epigrams.

The earliest of these compilations was made by Melea'ger, a native of Syria, who was born about 96 B.C. He was himself a writer of considerable ability, the Anthology containing one hundred and thirty-one of his own epigrams, which are written in a delicate and fanciful vein.

With this writer ends all that is interesting in the poetry of ancient Greece. For six centuries after his death Greek poets at intervals appeared, but they have left no works of any special value.

Collections, similar to that of Meleager, were made at a later period by Philip'pus of Thessalonica, who lived in the time of Trajan, and by Aga'thias, who lived in the sixth century a.d. The works of these compilers, however, have perished, and we know them only by the compilation made from them by Constantine Ceph'alas, in the tenth century, who was himself copied and condensed by Maximus Planu'des, in the fourteenth.

The word Anthologist means a Flower-gatherer. Meleager appended it to his work, which he named his Garland, prefacing it with a set of verses in which he characterizes each of the principal writers included by a flower or plant emblematic of his or her particular genius.

We owe to him some very valuable relics of Grecian poetry, extending over many centuries, and embracing fugitive verses from a large number of writers. Most of these authors are obscure, but among them are such noted poets as Simonides, Sappho, Anacreon and others.

The poems of the Anthology have been variously received by modern writers, being greatly admired by some and decried by others. This adverse criticism is largely due to their lack of the modern epigrammatic manner. They make, indeed, no pretense to the pungency and witty sparkle and sting of our epigrams, being rather short poems on various subjects than epigrams in the modern sense of the term.

The poems embraced in the Anthologies cover a wide range of subjects. Many of them are dedicatory verses, relating to the habit of the Greeks of dedicating certain of their possessions to deities whose aid they had received or desired. The articles thus offered were of the most varied character, comprising the arms and war-spoils of soldiers, the tools of mechanics, the toys of children, even the beards of men, and the hair and mirrors of

women.

Others of the poems are sepulchral in character, being written in honor of the dead, or inscribed on tombs. Many of them are didactic, comprising maxims, moral precepts, rules of conduct, etc. The remainder may be classed as amatory, witty, satirical and literary, which last embrace epigrams on poets, dramatists, artists, etc.

We give extracts illustrating these varied classes of epigrams.

DEDICATORY.

In the following, by Leonidas, a young lad offers to Mercury the childish toys he is laying aside.

"To Hermes this fair ball of pleasant sound,

This boxen rattle, fraught with lively noise,

These maddening dice, this top well whirling round,-
Philocles has hung up, his boyhood's toys."

The following is the most celebrated of all this class of epigrams. It is ascribed to Plato, the philosopher. Lais, growing old, dedicates to Venus her looking-glass.

"Venus! take this votive glass,

Since I am not what I was;
What I shall hereafter be,

Venus! let me never see."

This idea has been expanded by Julian, the Egyptian, as follows:

"I, Lais, who on conquered Greece looked down with haughty pride;

I, to whose courts, in other days, a swarm of lovers hied;

O, ever lovely Venus! now this mirror give to thee,

For my present self I would not, and my past I cannot, see."

SEPULCHRAL.

This inscription is one of the few remains of the celebrated poetess Erinna.

แ The virgin Myrtis' sepulchre am I;

Creep softly to the pillar'd mount of woe,
And whisper to the grave, in earth below,
'Grave, thou art envious in thy cruelty!'
The very torch that laughing Hymen bore
To light the virgin to the bridegroom's door,

With that same torch the bridegroom lights the fire

That dimly glimmers on her funeral pyre.

Thou, too, O Hymen! bid'st the nuptial lay
In elegiac moanings die away."

AMATORY.

"But I would be a mirror,

So thou may'st pleased behold me;
Or robe, with close embraces
About thy limbs to fold me;
A crystal fount to lave thee;
Sweet oils thy hair to deck;
A zone, to press thy bosom;

Or pearl, to gem thy neck;
Or, might I worship at thy feet,
A sandal to thy feet I'd be;
E'en to be trodden on were sweet,

If to be trodden on by thee."—Anacreon.

DIDACTIC.

"All say that you are rich; I say, not so;
You're poor; wealth only by its use we know.
What you enjoy is yours; what for your heirs
You hoard, already is not yours but theirs."

-Anonymous.

"Tis said that Virtue dwells sublime
On rugged cliffs, full hard to climb,
Where round her ranged, a sacred band
Acknowledge her divine command;
But mortal ne'er her form may see,

Unless his restless energy

Breaks forth in sweat that wins the goal,

The perfect manhood of the soul."-Simonides.

LITERARY.

There are very numerous epigrams on poets in the Anthology. It has been supposed that they, or many of them, formed a continuous poem, being a gallery of the successive poets. We give some of the more striking. The following exists in several varied forms.

HOMER.

"Seven Grecian cities vied for Homer dead

Through which the living Homer begged his bread."