moved foon after his birth to Afcra in Boeotia. His writings are esteemed next in antiquity and value to those of HOMER. Some have wantonly made them contemporaries, and pretend to fay, that HESIOD got the better of HOMER in a poetical difpute. But this is highly improbable, fince it may be confefs'd without detracting from his real merit, that HESIOD is by no means his equal. Befides, the nature of their talents is as different, as the ftyle of their poems. The one excels more in fublimity than in accuracy: is lefs indebted to art than to nature; more engaged in the tumults of war, than the quiet of retirement. The other is rather ftudious of plainnefs than fublimity; lefs fond of ornament, than propriety; more addicted to the images of a rural life, than the busy scenes of a public one. The fimplicity of his parts, and the agreeable softness of his difpofition, are evident from his choice of a ftile between loftiness and meannefs, which is well fuited to the undisturbed tranquility of his ftation and temper. His fuccefs in this kind of poetry is fufficient to justify his claim to the second rank, without ever placing him in competition with HOMER for the first. They tell an odd ftory of him, which shews him to have been a man of either humour or caprice. For accidentally as he one day over-heard a potter at his daily labour finging fome of his verses with an ill accent and cadence, he threw himself down on the poor man's brittle property; at which the fellow immediately cried out, "why do you fpoil my work?" "because, anfwered "HESIOD, you spoil mine."

ALCAUS excelled in a different way both from HOMER and HESIOD; but was more defirous of acquiring reputation in the capacity of a foldier and a patriot, than in that of a poet. His pretentions however to the two former are not fo well grounded as his pretenfions to the latter. For as to his military glory, it appears, that in a battle between

the Athenians and Mytileneans he fled fuddenly from the engagement, and dishonourably left his fhield in the poffeffion of an enemy. And as to his zeal in the service of his country notwithstanding his violent oppofition to the measures of PITTACUS, the prudent tyrant of Mytilene, he was ambitious of afpiring to that arbitrary command, which he blamed in the hands of another. All his writings are in the lyric ftrain, and composed in a very fine measure peculiar to himself. He has happily united closeness with magnificence, spirit with correctness, and the utmost strength of judgment with the warmth of fancy; and though his muse is generally employed in matters of love and gallantry, yet he always fhews himself fit for fubjects of a nobler nature. Since I have mentioned ALCAUS, Ifhould not omit his famous contemporary SAPPHO, who flourished in Mytilene about the forty-fourth olympiad, and was a woman of no great beauty, but of infinite delicacy and wit; enough one would have thought to atone for her other defects. She disdained the most paffionate addresses of ALCAUS; and upon his whispering to her one day, “ that " he had fomething to tell her, but was afhamed of it," she answered with a just indignation, "that if he had no reason "to be afhamed of it, he would not conceal it." Her cruelty to him is the more remarkable, because she was much enamoured of one PHAON, whofe unkindness in leaving her, as it was the occafion of her fineft performances, fò it was the cause of her death. She had a wonderful vein of infinuation and foftnefs, which, even now, gives her writings fuch a powerful sway over the tenderest affections of human nature. There is fomething so graceful and unaffected in her expreffion and fentiments, fo finooth and harmonious in her numbers, that the title of " tenth muse," bestowed on her by the common voice of Greece, is no more than a due teftimony of refpect to the merit of her poetry.

ARCHILOCHUS was a native of Paros, and held in esteem as a poet, about the fame time with SAPPHO and ALCEUS. He generally passes among the Greeks for the inventor of a peculiar measure, called Iambic verfe; but a man of learning affured me, that there is a piece of HOMER's, named Margites, ftill extant, that proves the contrary. His way of writing is ftrong and nervous, fhort and pointed, witty and fatyrical, but tinctured with fo much gall and malice, that he himself profeffes," he could fpare neither friend nor foe." They tell a remarkable ftory of him, that one LYCAMBES having offered him his daughter in marriage, and afterwards refused to give her, ARCHILOCHUS lafhed them with such rancour and severity, that he and his daughter both hang'd themselves.

Some years after liv'd ANACREON of Teos in Ionia, a man of eafe and pleasure, dividing his time betwixt the amusements of wine, love, and poetry. He was fo profeffed an enemy to care and business, that when his patron POLYCRATES of Samos made him one day a prefent of five talents, it difturbed his fleep; fo he carried it back again the next, and told him," that how confiderable foever the fum might "be, it was not a reward equal to the trouble of preferving "it." His writings are agreeable to the freedom of his behaviour; fo that he draws a very lively picture of his own character in the several touches of nature, that are to be found in his odes and fonnets. We may compare his muse to his mistress; she seems airy, loose, and negligent, and is dress'd up with more art, the more fhe hides the appearance of it. He lived eighty-five years in one continued series of health and retirement. To make his death conformable to his life, he is faid to have been choak'd with a grape-ftone in his wine.

I fhall not trouble thee with any memoirs of ALCMAN, BACCHYLIDES, IBYCUS, STESICHORUS, and SIMONIDES; though they excelled each in their different way, and the last of them hath particularly recorded, in verse, the four fights of MARATHON, THERMOPYLE, SALAMIS, and PLATEA. But of all those, who contributed to support the grandeur of the lyric mufe, PINDAR must be mentioned with most regard. His poems were compofed in honour of several conquerors, at the Ifthmian, Pythian, Nemeæan, or Olympic games; and give us a notion of the highest transport and elevation, to which this art can be advanced. His defigns are fo vaft, his style fo daring, his thoughts so striking and uncommon, that it requires as much attention to read him, as to imitate others. He has often been cenfured as too unbridled and irregular; yet this is not the leaft of his beauties, fince an ode is intended more to raise our fancy, than to inform our judgment. It is adapted to the fire and majesty of PINDAR; his imagination is on the wing; he cannot stay for words to exprefs himself methodically; he uses the boldeft fort of painting; he gives us a general likeness of his hero, without finishing the features. Thus has he triumphed over the labours of art, and extorted this approbation from mankind, that he alone is the "perfect and unrival'd master of the Grecian Lyre." The Athenians pride themselves to this day in an act of uncommon generofity, which they performed towards this admired poet. His own countrymen the Thebans having fin'd him in a large fum of money, for the particular regard he pays every where to Athens in the course of his odes, and his neglect of Thebes, that was his native city, the people of Athens honourably discharged the fine, and proved themselves not unworthy of the great esteem, which PINDAR had conceived for them.

I fhall proceed in the next place to the dramatic poetry of Athens, and the writers of hiftory: however as to the former, thou wilt forgive me, if I fay nothing of it at prefent, fince it really seems so interwoven with the frame of the Athenian conftitution, that an account of it would hardly be proper for the perufal of a friend, as of a minister of state: and as to the latter, I muft delay the little materials I have collected upon that fubject, to another letter. But I detain thee too long from the presence of thy prince, whofe affection thou haft fecur❜d by the duty of thy obedience; and whose bounty, by the zeal of thy fervice. Adieu.

fo

From Salamis.

C.

LETTER XX.

CLEANDER to SMERDIS the Mage.

THE miferies of the eastern world, whilft the plague lafted in those parts, much engaged my attention and my pity; and it seemed, as if the angry gods had intended by a variety of evils to extirpate the race of mortals from the earth. But fure their hotteft vengeance was referved for these devoted regions, and is now inflicted in the moft complicated, calamities, that ever have befallen human kind. For that hasty and invifible destroyer, which had ravaged the Perfian empire, begins now to spread itself through these parts, at a time when civil difcord infefts the Grecian ftates, and depopulates their most flourishing communities, worse than ever the Barbarian would have done. Who fhall describe the terrors of the war? the ruins and devaftations of many large and fruitful districts, which fuffer not more from hoftile fury, than from the policy of their own native inhabitants? By them