appeals, pointing out to him the blessings of honest contentment as compared with the worries of an idle life. This brother seems to have been a sharp-dealing and worthless fellow, who gave our poet incessant trouble. He took delight in idling about the courts of law, instead of engaging in industrial pursuits, and applied his knowledge of the law to litigate his poet brother out of his portion of their father's estate, after having previously secured to himself the lion's share.

It is surprising to see, from the Cimmerian gloom of early Greece, so much emerging that still exists in our modern civilizations. Appeals to the law and the doubtfulness of justice, the difficulties of making a living, the active pursuit of agriculture, busy commerce in all seaports, and the dim remoteness of the age of gold.

The following is the recipe of the poet for wine making. "The rosy-fingered morn the vintage calls;

Then bear the gathered grapes within thy walls,
Ten days and nights exposed the clusters lay,
Basked in the radiance of each mellowing day.
Let five their circling round successive run,
While lie the grapes o'ershadowed from the sun;
The sixth express the harvest of the vine,

And teach the vats to foam with joy-inspiring wine.”

-Elton.

Another illustration, full of homely wisdom, we append

from Chapman's spirited version.

"Make then thy man-swain one that hath no house;
Thy handmaid one that hath nor child nor spouse;
Handmaids that children have are ravenous.

A mastiff, likewise nourish still at home,

Whose teeth are sharp and close as any comb,
And meat him well, to keep with stronger guard
The day-sleep-night-wake-man from forth thy yard.”

The Theogony, which many critics deny to be a genuine work of Hesiod, though, as it appears, without any suffi

cient reason, was greatly esteemed by priests and philosophers, being considered the highest authority on questions of mythology. Numerous commentaries were written on it by the Alexandrian philosophers.

This work collects together the many flying shreds of mythologic legend with which the memories of the people were doubtless filled, and weaves them into a sort of consecutive story of the earliest creation, and of the genealogies and quarrels of the Gods, down to the final triumph of Zeus. Orpheus and Musæ'us, according to tradition, had written Theogonies, of which Hesiod may have availed himself. However that be, he has done his work with great skill, and with an epic vigor which at times rises. to a high poetic strain.

His work is a complete storehouse of the origin and doings of the Gods, the terrible warfare between Jupiter and the giants, and the birth of the various deities, down to the very river and wood nymphs of the godlike line. Of the first appearance of Aphrodi'te he very beautifully says:

-"Where her delicate feet Had pressed the sands, green herbage flowering sprang, Love tracked her steps, and beautiful Desire

But it is in his battle scenes that he rises to a vigor and graphic energy that rival Homer. Many of his descriptions prefigure Milton's "warfare in heaven," and seem to have lent suggestions to the later bard. Thus:

"All on that day roused infinite the war,

Female and male; the Titan deities,

The gods from Cronus sprung, and those whom Zeus
From subterranean gloom released to light;

Terrible, strong, of force enormous; burst

A hundred arms from all their shoulders huge;
From all their shoulders fifty heads upsprang
O'er limbs of sinewy mould. They then arrayed

Against the Titans in full combat stood,
And in their nervous grasp wielded aloft
Precipitous rocks. On the other side alert
The Titan phalanx closed: then hands of strength
Joined prowess, and displayed the works of war,
Tremendous then the immeasurable sea

Roared; earth resounded; the wide heaven throughout
Groaned shattering; from its base Olympus vast
Reeled to the violence of the Gods; the shock

Of deep concussion rocked the dark abyss
Remote of Tartarus; the shrilling din

Of hollow tramplings, and strong battle strokes,
And measureless uproar of wild pursuit.”—Elton.

And in like strain the war goes on, till Zeus overwhelms the Titans with his lightnings and imprisons them in a deep abyss, at whose gate stand sentry Day and Night, in alternate watchfulness; Night aided by her sons Death and Sleep. This strongly reminds us of the grisly guardians of Hell's gate, in Milton's poem.

Hesiod's "Shield of Hercules" describes a fierce fight of the hero with a robber named Cycnus, in which, of course, Hercules bore off the honors. The shield of the hero is described with a close detail equaling that of the memorable description of the shield of Achilles by Homer.

Throughout the works of Hesiod are numerous bits of proverbial philosophy, the adages extant before his time, and which he worked into his poems in the manner of all primitive authors. We subjoin a few specimens of this proverbial wisdom of the early Greeks.

"Hard work will best uncertain fortune mend."

"Ever with loss the putter-off contends."

"When on your home falls unforeseen distress,

Half clothed come neighbors; kinsmen stay to dress."

THE EARLY LYRIC POETS.

In the development of human thought, reflection follows observation. Men's eyes, so long taken captive by the wonders and charms of the exterior world, at length turn inward upon their own mental world, viewing its varied phenomena.

Epic poetry is, in its general sense, the poetry of observation, relating the deeds of men, the phenomena of nature, the fables of primitive theology. The lyric, in the same general sense, is the poetry of reflection, describing the thoughts of men and the changeful processes of the human mind.

The epicist deals with things and events in the third person; the lyricist in the first person. It is the ego that occupies his attention - I, and the influence of the world upon me as a thinking being. Whatever his subject, we perceive himself always in the foreground; the living, subjective being, to whom all things besides are subordinate. The epicist, on the contrary, stands in the background, unseen, the hidden relator of events with which himself is no more nearly concerned than the rest of mankind.

Necessarily, then, the lyric is of later development than the epic, and is significant of a fuller unfoldment of man's mentality. The first barren chronicles of events, and disconnected cosmogonies, are followed by poetic imaginings, weaving these legends and superstitions into connected narratives and theogonies, gradually adorned with all the graces of language and imagery. Next, men begin to record their own reflections, and to sing the thoughts which spring like unbidden flowers in the human mind; and the lyric is born.

There are many early specimens extant of this phase of poetic thought; particularly in the Hebrew Scriptures, in which a high degree of lyrical fervor is reached by many of the prophets of Israel. We may instance Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, David and Solomon.

For how long a period the lyric may have been cultivated in Greece we know no more than we know of the origin of the epic. There were probably many public minstrels, whose works have been lost, and whose first rude strains gradually took on the polish and finish which we find in the songs of Archil' ochus, the earliest extant lyricist.

The name of Calli'nus has been handed down as the originator of elegiac poetry; but the first name which comes to us, sufficiently fortunate to be accompanied by illustrative remains, is that of Archilochus, who is viewed in Greek literature as the father of lyric poetry.b

ARCHIL'OCHUS.

FLOURISHED ABOUT 670 B.C.

This author, who takes up the thread of literature from one to two centuries after it was dropped by Homer and Hesiod, was a native of Paros, in Lydia.

But few glimpses remain of his life, and these few not greatly to his credit. Thus, as we are told, in a battle with the Thracians, he lost his shield in the contest, or threw it away that it might not impede his flight, as his enemies declare. Subsequently he was banished from Sparta; some say, because he had vindicated his conduct in running away from the fight; others say, on account of the licentiousness of his verse. He afterward returned to his native town, and took part in a war which ensued, in which he lost his life, either in battle or by assassination.

As a poet he ranks very high, being classed by the ancients with Homer. They dedicated the statues of both