In

however gratifying the act may be*. general, the precepts of the poet are just and noble, and his sentiments pure, though delivered with some obscurity. His moral thoughts are gleams of light bursting through clouds, his genius is wrapt in shades, and he seems to soar away into the highest regions of fancy. He mingles the fictions of allegory with the records of history, and the sudden transitions of subject in which he indulges, are connected only by subtle and often imperceptible links.

The images which Pindar presents to the mind are splendid and beautiful, he seems to mount the battlements of some ancient structure, and to wave his royal banners, painted and emblazoned with the heraldry of former times. Even now we are hurried away by enthusiasm in reading his odes; and when they were recited, with the interest which attached to them at their first production, they must have required the aid of the music, to which they were composed, to calm and regulate the minds of the hearers †.

Plutarch de audiendis Poetis, $20.

+ West's Pindar, Preface.

The victories celebrated by the poet were considered as among the most desirable distinctions which could be obtained. All the nations of Greece assembled at the public games *, and likewise strangers from Egypt, Asia, and Africa, to witness not only the contests of bodily skill, but the display of intellectual pre-eminence in the productions of eloquence and poetry, in works of history, and in epic and lyric compositions.

↑ Pausan, Eliac. Prior, lib. 5. c. 8. p. 391.

CHAP. X.

Sophocles.

SOPHOCLES and Euripides appear have maintained some of the patriarchal principles of religion. A slight attention to the works of these writers will be sufficient to prove this.

Sophocles was an Athenian, born at Colone, in the 71st Olympiad, under the archonship of Philip, 25 or SO years, according to the chronology which we adopt, after Eschylus, and fifteen or twenty before Euripides, near five hundred years before Christ. Descended from parents in a moderate station, he engaged early in military life, and is said to have been present with Eschylus at Salamis, and to have been joined in commission with Pericles to reduce the Samians, on occasion of a revolt. Thus among the

heroes of antiquity many were able to celebrate in poetry the victories which they contributed to obtain. Sophocles, in particular, employed his harp to accompany the pæans of triumph at Salamis. He is reported to have derived instruction from schylus, but to have surpassed his master in a poetical contest upon occasion of the discovery of the bones of Theseus at Athens. The high reputation which he obtained excited such enthusiasm in his favour, that many ascribed to him the power of performing miracles, even Cicero mentions that it was reported of him that he discovered in a dream the man who had stolen a goblet from the temple of Hercules.

Sophocles is said to have written 120 plays, of which seven only remain; he appears to have delighted in describing noble characters, and in expressing generous affections. He speaks of the supreme God in a manner superior to the vulgar notions of his time, and which seems to raise the great object of adoration with distinction above the Heathen deities.

To this effect is the following passage in the Antigone:

"Who of men, Jove

"Can by surpassing pride controul thy power,
"Which neither all enfeebling sleep

"Can ever arrest, or the unwearied
"Months of the Gods: but unworn by time,
"Supreme Lord! thou dwellest

"In the bright splendour of Olympus;

"That which is at hand, and that which is remote, "And that which has past away fulfil thy will."

The lines remind us of the beautiful passage in the Psalms :

"He that keepeth thee will not slumber,

"Behold he that keepeth Israel

"Shall neither slumber nor sleep +."

And Habakkuk says:

"His brightness was as the light ‡."

Cudworth also produces from Clement of Alexandria a passage of Sophocles as genuine, though not now extant, which is in substance as follows;

"In truth there is one God,

"Who framed the Heaven and th' extended Earth, "The azure billows and the force of the winds §."

Antig. 1. 612. 622. Edit. Johnson,

Psalm. cxxi. 3, 4.

Chap. iii. 4. 1 Tim. vi. 16.

Intell. Syst. b. 1. ch. 4. Eis tais aλndiaio. Clem. Alex. Cohort. ad. c. 7. p. 63. Edit. Potter. Strom. lib. v. c. 257. p. 717.