fame juncture; though BION was born at Smyrna, and MOSCHUS at Syracufe. The former refided, however, fome part of his life, in Italy, where MOSCHUS attended his poetic school, and imbibed his taste and manner. Thefe brothers in genius were contemporary with the great father of paftoral poetry. They have been called his rivals! They have been almost preferred to him by LONGEPIERRE! But whether they ought, in justice, to be considered, at all, in the light of pastoral writers, is a question of doubt; which, however, it might be unprofitable to difcufs.

6

The Epitaph on Adonis is, indisputably, the work of an exuberant invention, and a fine sensibility. Its strains are fo mufical and fo melancholy, that they melt upon the ear, and almoft fteal into the heart. Yet, amidst these beauties, we discover a blemish the moft unpardonable of all poetic errors. Allured by the richness of ornamented imagery, the poet too frequently overlooks the fimplicity of nature. The puerile idea of the 'boar's white teeth wounding the white skin;' and the purple blood opposed to the Snowy limbs;' the witticism of the wound of forrow in the bosom of VENUS, as deep as that in the thigh of ADONIS;' the quaint effufion of her tears, as many in number as the drops of blood that trickled from her lover;' and the truly Ovidian transformation of those tears and drops of blood into rofes and anemonies; and the conceit of flowers blushing with grief-not to mention mountains, woods, hills, fprings, rivers, all huddled together in the most lamentable confusion-these furely are evident indications of a vicious tafle, and a difordered fancy..

The

The fucceeding Idyllia of BION, particularly Cupid and the Fowler, and the Teacher taught, are sweet and delicate effusions; a few of them resembling the modern fonnet.

The fame may be obferved of the lighter Idyllia of MOSCHUS; particularly the Choice, and the Evening Star. In these little pieces, there is a vein of feeling and agreeable fentiment; without that false polish, that varnish of refinement, fo plainly perceivable in the Epitaph on ADONIS. Not that the Epitaph on BION is free from objection. It is evidently formed on the plan of the former elegy; and, though more natural, hath not the merit of a very strict adherence to nature. To throw the fhade of fympathetic melancholy over the fcenery of ftill-life, requires indeed the hand of a master. But the true poet will disdain the cold unaffecting combination of fountains, groves, and plants and flowers, all undistinguishably rueful; except indeed the rose, that turns from red to pale-a stroke of discrimination not eafily overlooked. General images of grief, even thoughthey are founded on the principles of truth and nature, may 'play round the head, but can never reach the heart.' In the Epitaph on BION, we may be foothed, for a moment, by its mournful air, and its melodious numbers: but are we often affected by strokes of genuine pathos? If, instead of a general description of all the feathered tribe warbling their master's elegy, the poet had pictured the grief of a particular bird, which BION had taught to fing, that had been sheltered beneath his roof, and been accustomed to peck the crumbs from his table, the painting might have had its effect. We are delighted with CATULLUS's Swallow, and AN ACREON'S

Dove. And these poems must have been peculiarly charming, where the swallow or the dove was held in veneration; or endeared (as the latter is in the Eaftern countries) by the fondness of domestic familiarity.、

The generalities, however, of this elegiac poem, have been frequently imitated by fucceeding writers; and modern elegy hath found treasures in MOSCHUS, which she could not find in nature.

If we glance at his other larger Idyllia, his EUROPA, it may be obferved, is more interefting than that of OVID, (who is here indeed a pretty close copyist) and the Dialogue between the wife and mother of HERCULES contains feveral very affecting paffages.

But to conclude. The character of these half-paftoral poets (under the person of BION) cannot be more accurately or more beautifully drawn, than in the following paffage from the Arcadia of Sir WILLIAM JONES:

• First, in the midst a graceful youth arose,
Born in those fields where cryftal Mele flows:
His air was courtly, his complexion fair;

⚫ And rich perfumes shed sweetness from his hair,
That o'er his fhoulder wav'd in flowing curls,
• With roses braided, and inwreath'd with pearls;
A wand of cedar for his crook he bore;

• His flender foot the Arcadian fandal wore;
Yet that fo rich, it feem'd to fear the ground,
With beaming gems and filken ribbands bound;
The plumage of an oftrich grac'd his head,

And with embroidered flowers his mantle was o'erfpread,

DISSERTATION

O N

TYRT Æ U S.

THAT the first literary productions of every age and

nation were written in verse, we learn from the concurrent relations of hiftorians, and (what is a furer teftimony) the conftitution of the human mind. Not to infift on philofophical evidence, we must be fufficiently convinced of the fact, while we recollect the Scythian or Runic mythology, the war-fongs of the American tribes, or the ftrains of the rude Otaheitans: There is a peculiar fpecies of fimplicity that characterises even the most elevated and penetrating genius that exifts amidst unpolished manners. The objects that fall under its immediate notice are few: these are rapidly collected, and reprefented with a ftrength and wildness that speak enthusiastic emotion, and a fancy ftruggling for expanfion. The frequent recurrence of Highland imagery, that difcriminates the poems of OSSIAN with the fameness of. original beauty, in all the inartificial contexture peculiar to untutored genius, hath been admitted as no unconvincing argument of their antiquity.*

Their antiquity, indeed, has been inconteftibly proved by the production (though among a few Literati only) of the originals from whence they were tranflated.

E 3

The

The war elegies of TYRTEUS have the fame lineaments of ancient times. They poffefs an inimitable energy; a majestic, yet undiversified fimplicity. There is a boldness in the painting, but no variety. TYRTÆUS is ftrikingly a mannerist. His poems abound with repetitions of the fame images and ideas. Of our military poet and his productions, we have a few scattered records among the Greek and Roman writers. We are informed by SUIDAS, that TYRTEUS flourished a contemporary with the feven wife men of Greece. He is faid to have written on the conduct of life, in elegiac verfe; and, very copioufly, on the art of war. Yet a few mutilated fragments are all that are transmitted to us of his works. Thefe, however, are fo beautiful, that we cannot but feel an intereft in the fate of their author; while the line to which we have been long familiarized,

TYRTEUSQUE mares animos in martia bella
Verfibus exacuit

naturally leads us to affociate life and action with every verse we read. That splendid circumstance, alluded to by HORACE, must have excited curiosity in all who love literature and the mufe.

Whether TYRTÆUS was born at Athens or Miletus, feems to be an undetermined point. We are told, however, that he was lame, and deformed in his perfon; and that he kept a fchool at Athens, till, by the advice of the Oracle at Delphi, he was chofen general of Lacedæmon, in her war against Mene. The latter, it appears, had been victorious in

* See DIODORUS SICULUS, b. 15.

various