High on a pile th' unconquered chief is placed,
The god that armed him first, consumed at last.
Of all the mighty man, the small remains,

A little urn,

and scarcely filled, contains.

Yet great in Homer still Achilles lives;

And equal to himself, himself survives.

OVID'S Metamorphoses, book 12.

HESIOD.

This poet is supposed by some authors to have been contemporary with Homer; by others, to have lived about 100 years after him. Though he cannot be ranked with his great predecessor in the art, yet his writings possess much beauty. He wrote a poem on agriculture, called "The Works and the Days;" the " Theogony," or account of the genealogies of the gods, &c.; and the "Shield of Hercules," only a fragment of which has been preserved. Hesiod is supposed to have been a native of Ascra, in Boeotia, and by some, is said to have been murdered, and his body thrown into the sea; but being washed on shore by the returning tide, he was recognised, the assassins discovered by the poet's dogs, and sacrifices offered to his manes.

Hesiod speaks of his inspiration by the Muses thus ;

So said the daughters of the mighty Jove,
Sooth-speaking maids: and gave unto my hand
A rod of marvellous growth, a laurel bough
Of blooming verdure; and within me breathed
A heavenly voice, that I might utter forth
All past and future things: and bade me praise
The blessed race of ever-living gods;

And ever first and last the muses sing.

HESIOD. Theogony.

ANACREON.

ANACREON, a celebrated lyric poet, was born at Teos, in Ionia; he flourished B. C. 532, and has been supposed by some authors to have been a descendent of Codrus, the last king of Athens. His odes are the principal of his works which remain ; they are famed for their sweetness and elegant simplicity. Anacreon's death, in his eighty-fifth year, is said to have been caused by a grape-stone, a most characteristic end for one so partial to the juice of the vine. His statue was placed in the citadel of Athens.

SAPPHO.

SAPPHO, "the Lesbian maid," was a native of the island of Lesbos, where she was born B. C. 600. She became attached to a youth of Mitylene; but the feeling not being reciprocal, she resolved to terminate her existence, and threw herself from the promontory of Mount Leucas, now Santa Maura, which has thence been named "the Lover's Leap." A very few fragments of her poetical works exist at the present time, but they are sufficient to shew that she deserved the appellation of the tenth muse. The Sapphic verse was named from the poetess; and, after her death, divine honours were paid to her by her countrymen.

VIRGIL.

VIRGIL, the most famous of the Latin poets, was born near Mantua, (whence he is sometimes called the "Mantuan Swan,") about the year 70, B. C. He became acquainted with Mæcenas, the great patron of literature, who introduced him to

Augustus, and it is supposed to have been at the request of the emperor that he undertook the composition of the Æneid, which is an account of the adventures of Æneas, after the destruction of Troy. His poetry is remarkable for the ease, purity, and harmony of the language; but his ideas and principal incidents were borrowed from Homer, whom he appears to have studied most assiduously. Virgil also wrote the Georgics, by some considered the most perfect of Latin poems, and the ten Bucolics.

He resided principally at the court of his patron, Augustus ; but going to Athens, he was seized with an illness, in the fifty-first year of his age, which proved mortal: he was interred at Naples.

A time will come when my maturer muse,
In Cæsar's wars a nobler theme shall choose;

And through more ages bear my sovereign's praise,
Than have from Tithon past to Cæsar's days.

VIRGIL. Georgic 3.

| HORACE.

HORACE, a celebrated Latin poet, was born at Venusia, in Italy. He studied philosophy, and the polite literature of the time, at

Athens, and returning thence, he entered the army, and fought on the republican side, in the battle of Philippi; but, not being attached to the profession of arms, he settled at Rome, where he was patronised by his contemporary, Virgil, and by other literary characters, through whom he became known to Augustus and Mæcenas, in whose society he constantly resided, and with the latter of whom he formed so strong a friendship, that on his death, he has been supposed to have hastened his own, as he only survived him a few weeks. The odes of Horace are the most admired of his productions, for the uncommon elegance of the diction; but his Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry, are all well known :-he was the first Latin poet who wrote in lyric numbers.

Neither Horace, nor his contemporary Ovid, appear to have been endued with any superfluous modesty in their estimation of their works; and although they both augured truly, their predictions, as emanating from themselves, are very amusing: we subjoin specimens.

On stronger and on swifter wing
Than Icarus fled, I rise and sing;
A sounding bird I soar :
I'll see the distant northern pole,

I'll see the southern billows roll,

And spread my wings o'er Bosphorus' groaning shore.