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partake of the influence of those harmonies, with which he was perpetually surrounded. Far removed from the crowded haunts and petty contentions of men, he would breathe in a world of his ownthe cataract would be to him a passion, the rugged mountain would supply the place of ambition, and the woods, the streams, and plots of verdure, would share in his affections. Sometimes the deep feelings, thus excited, would be called into expression by the death of the dearest and most gentle of his flock-by the reviving ravishment of spring-by the regular seasons of devotion-or by the inroads of barbarian hordes, which, after they had passed away, would make his innocent and lonely pleasures seem still more tranquil. Many such poets have, no doubt, walked with God on earth, in gentleness and gladness of heart, whose ashes are long since covered with silence. But they share in the immortality of him, from whom the strong divinity of their spirit was derived, and whose voice shall awaken their silent harps to deathless fame, and in immortal chorus, in the midst of listening angels, to deepen the joys of celestial blessedness.

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The seducing love of human applause, however, would naturally induce many, who were gifted with the powers of singing and com- › posing poems, to seek the capitals of rising monarchies. There they were employed in celebrating the exploits of the chieftain, in hunting, or in warfare. They also recorded in verse the laws of those infant states, whose founders hoped, by the same means, to be rendered immortal. Thus poetry, which had hitherto been a delightful feeling, indulged almost in solitude, became the chief art of life-a gift, which princes were eager to patronize-and a register of events, intimately connected with the progress of social institutions.

Poetry was now to receive a vast accession of splendor, and to undergo a melancholy corruption of its noblest uses, in the rapid diffusion of mythologic fictions. The mind was not then arrived at sufficient maturity to retain the simple and abstract idea of its great Creator: and thus the very sympathy, which the purest minds had expressed for the works of nature, as reflecting the wonders and mercies of Jehovah, became the origin of a system, which almost obliterated the vestiges of primitive goodness. In the warm countries of the East, a ruling power diffused his blessings from the fiery chariot of the sun upon his favorite children. Chaldæans, who surveyed the wonders of Heaven from the lofty turrets of Babylon, imaged bright angels, directing the silent course of the stars, which they soon elevated to the rank of Deities. chaste scenery of Greece-its quivering groves and delicious fields, encircled with snowy rocks, deepening by contrast the azure of the seas, were easily peopled by a prolific fancy, with a thousand invisible and benignant spirits. If the swain, stretched beneath the

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dusky olives of Attica, heard at a distance the undulating notes of a lyre of enchanting melody, it was a young and blooming youth, the divine patron of wisdom and of music. If the leaves in some

shady recess were moved by the balmy winds, it was Zephyr, in frolic gaiety, that wooed the blushing morning, as she arose over the mountains in virgin majesty. When the moon gleamed with a pale radiance through the tufted woods, and spread her golden splendor on the silver mirror of the stream, it was the chaste Diana, who thus befriended the hunters entangled and weary. From the calm ocean "Proteus seemed to rise," and " Öld Triton blew his wreathed horn"-Venus moulded the heart to the sweet influences of love-Jupiter spoke in the awful voices of the tempest-Graces encircled the fountains-Muses glided through the pensive bowers -Loves lurked in the opening blooms-and every corner of nature was filled with life, and power, and deity. The whole system was full of poetry; and its influence was unfolded with a splendor unrivalled in succeeding times, in the oldest of its remaining memorials-the works of Hesiod and of Homer.

The poetry of Greece, to the consideration of which we are arrived, does not appear to have attained its maturity by the slow degrees, through which nature usually conducts the most noble of her productions. Like Minerva, it sprung to life in the noontide glory of its strength. One of its earliest was the greatest of its poets, whose various excellencies its succeeding bards rather endeavoured more openly to develope, than to rival. In him, indeed, the treasured wisdom of future ages seemed to have been anticipated. The fire of a spirit, nursed in the midst of barbarism, was tempered and blended with an intuitive and oracular knowledge, which was afterwards elicited by the painful experience of centuries. He struck the earth with a trident, far more powerful than that which he has placed in the hands of Neptune, and a myriad springs of poetical delight burst forth, which succeeding poets have been contented to trace in their innumerable and sacred wanderings. The elements of their most vivid and divine conceptions may be traced in him.

The mythologies to which we have alluded, gave its peculiar tone and coloring to the poetry of Greece. As they were infinitely inferior to the purity of celestial wisdom, so they were far preferable to proud unbelief, sordid worldly mindedness, and heartless scepticism. At first they were, as we have seen, the forms and symbols, in which natural sympathies were embodied and rendered sacred; and though their origin was greatly obscured by the grossness of their worship, there were some minds by whom it was fondly remembered. Nor can it be denied, that the pomp of the heathen religion, the mystery of its sanctuaries, and the endless variety of phantoms, enlarged the resources of poetry, and extended the ima

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ginative faculties, and became, in their influence upon mortal life, a fertile source of terror and of pity. But while, on the one hand, they extended the province of genius, they contracted it on the other; for as human actions and miseries were almost invariably referred to divine interference, the inward and delicate movements of the heart were overlooked, and all the nice shades and discriminations of character confounded. Passions were exhibited rather in their physical effects and outward contortions, than in their moral workings. Love, instead of a pure and holy affection, arising from a deep and lively sense of the beautiful and the harmonious, was a feverish and unworthy passion, or a maddening impulse, suggested with resistless force, by a revengeful Deity. And as the female character was not then made the main spring of delight in society, poetry was destitute of its most varied, its most etherial and most enchanting graces. It was lofty, sententious and impassioned-full of strange vicissitudes and heart-rending distresses, but seldom penetrating into the dark caverns of the soul-now nervous and concise, and now expanding into the eloquence of woe, but seldom affecting the chords of our bosom with the force of human sympathies. While its chief moral was the vast power of the fates and of the superior Deities, and the weakness and mutability of our transitory species-its general and pervading feeling was superhuman and sublime-a dreadful solemnity of spirit mingled with reverence-mysterious, heart-chilling, and suited to the lofty purposes of inventive genius.

Although the poetry of Greece was derived from the East, it soon became peculiarly national. Exulting in her internal resources, rejoicing in her compact and self-collected energy, she soon regarded all the rest of mankind as barbarians, from whom she could borrow nothing without disgrace, and with whom she would hold no communion, but in the way of mastery. The majestic aspect of her freedom was, therefore, soon reflected in her works of fancy; and whilst the exploits of her early heroes, their joys and sorrows, formed the exclusive subject of her tragedy, which wore a mingled air of republican sternness and religious solemnity, the whole of her literature assumed the appearance of proud, invincible defiance. It was this peculiar spirit which preserved it from losing its originality and boldness, when the people became familiar with the rules of art, and severe in their detection of errors, occasioned by an over-fertile genius, and which imparted all the benefits without the evils of criticism. Hence it was exact in its smallest proportions, and yet grand in the general outline-all its wanderings were sanctioned by their majesty-and its wildest deviations were the most replete with ease and judgment, so that their obliquities were not only pardoned, but rendered the examples, from whence those rules were deduced, which it has since been regularity to

obey. Soon, alas! it fell from that bright and consummate glory, to which it had so speedily attained-the ruin of the liberty, with which it florished, seemed to leave it widowed and desolate. It withered with almost the same rapidity with which it had arisen, and left the world gloomy, barbarous, and degraded.

The splendor of the Roman Literature, which succeeded after a short and tumultuous interval, was scarcely longer in its duration. Through the brilliant annals of "The Eternal City," in the days of her perpetual conquest and ever-varying freedom, we discover but slight symptoms of a mighty poetical genius. But the moment when her destiny seemed to be accomplished, and the world lay prostrate at her feet, in the strange stillness of a universal dominion, so soon to be disturbed, all the imagination and fancy, which the stern heroism of ages had suppressed, burst forth in the full luxuri ance of its beauty. It seemed as if the sun of Roman grandeur was destined to gather ætherial glories, on the meridian of its stupendous course, just before it was about to descend the awful declivity of its evening, This marvellous age possessed all the qualities of a second era of Grecian literature which was the model of these inimitable specimens of hunian genius-it was less bold, less daring, and less original, but far more lovely and serene. The loftiest graces, as well as the most striking defects of the pattern, were smoothed and polished away in the imitations. The single, broad stream of imagination, was diffused into a thousand smaller aud gentler channels, which stole along, amidst more secluded and varying scenery. Wit became more pointed, versification more correct and harmonious, and philosophy more deeply reflective; but the mighty and supernatural power of astonishing and overwhelming the soul, which the Greeks had wielded with so terrific a force, was tempered into a calm and regular majesty. Single passages were less miraculous, but the poetry, on the whole, more delightful and attractive. Such, indeed, is the natural progress of the art in all the ages of mankind. In the tumultuous infancy of society, when men are just escaped from their natural barbarism, it is wild, solemn, and impassioned-the mind is disposed to yield itself wholly to the awe-inspiring superstitions of its fathers and strong natural passion is expressed in bold and ener getic language. But as society advances, the people begin to reason and learn to ridicule-criticism steps forward with its chill ing frowns-it is thought equally impossible to equal the more ancient writers, and to write without attempting it and poetry loses the terrible energy and preternatural wildness, with which it was before pervaded, and becomes more feeble and diffuse, and at the same time more pleasing, elegant, and seductive. It speedily dwindled at Rome, amidst vice and effeminate follies, till her glory was finally extinguished, and the immortal splendor of her noon

tide genius served only to throw a deadly glare over ages of barbarian desolation.

It might, indeed, well have been expected, that the diffusion of the Christian religion, which florished while Rome was declining, would have shed a potent and genial influence over the regions of fancy. A revelation, that beamed upon the world with the serenity and gentleness of Heaven-that threw rays of delight over the silence of the tomb, and opened a long perspective into the wondrous realities of eternity-that deprived death of its sting, and robbed the grave of its victory-that one moment shook this world with all the thunders of the next, and another encompassed it with a bright and celestial vision-necessarily tended to awaken the most elevated and devout affections. The mind was alternately awed and softened to the impression of every human emotion-astonished at the prodigious extent of its own destiny-bumbled with a sublime sense of its comparative littleness-agitated with anxious hope and fear for its future condition-delighted with the soothing kindness of the Father of Mercies, as he stood revealed in unclouded loveliness-and enraptured with the delicious prospects of an immortal Paradise. Yet we are compelled to acknowledge, that while these elements of poetry were aroused, the art itself remained for a considerable period without participating in the regeneration of the firmer and more active faculties of the spirit. The first feelings of the primitive recipients of truth were probably too strong and deep for expression; and while they were called upon to defend them at the bar, and to bear witness to their truth upon the scaffold, they were little disposed to embody their consolations in the refinements of mortal language. In the midst of danger and of death they were contented to enjoy, in the holy abstraction of silence, the delicious dreams of future blessedness and repose, with which they were favored by their invisible guardians. And, on the other hand, when truth became popular, and was first attended with the pomp and circumstance of worldly greatness, the masterspirits of the Church were engaged in perpetual controversy, not only with the remnants of heathen mythology, but with the heretics of their own communion. While they trod this thorny and perplexed road, they too often lost sight of the glory, together with the spirit of their religion. When they were deeply engaged in settling the inferior niceties of its doctrines, they almost forgot its deep and lofty sublimities, and even the commonest of those benignant truths and genial charities, in which were combined and exalted all the mysterious dictates of nature, and the collective wisdom of the patriarchal ages.

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These rich materials of poetry were not, however, to lie unregarded amidst the rubbish which encumbered the sanctuary. Their combination was soon to be effected by new commotions.

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