and inhabit the city Creston beyond the Tyrrhenians, or from the Pelasgians who inhabit Płacie and Scylace on the Hellespont, -they used a barbarous wode of speech. And if such was the language of the whole Pelasgian nation, the people of Attica, descended from them, must have abandoned their native tongue, when they were associated with the Hellenes:- "The Hellenes, in my opinion, from the time when they became a people, have used the same language which they now speak.

From many of its roots, the Greek appears in its origin to have been, to a considerable extent, cognate with the Teutonic dialects. Many philologists have supposed it to be derived from that extensive speech, employed in the south-east parts of Asia, from Syria to the remotest extremity of Arabia, which certainly possesses better claims than any other to be the universal parent language, if such an hypothesis is necessary. There are also undeniable specimens of coincidence between this and the Greek, but scarcely sufficient to be considered as affecting the whole body of that language. On the other hand, the Greek is a dialect of so consistent and homogeneous a structure, and so much formed from within itself, that the celebrated Hemsterhusins, the extent and profundity of whose acquaintance with this language have been surpassed by none, and approached by few, and who was the author of an ingenious theory concerning its structure, regarded it as a primitive mode of speech, unindebted for the principal part of its materials to any other tongue.

Passing however from these remote ages, enveloped in mists of antiquity, which we have no means of dispelling, we have in subsequent periods, a clear distinction of the Greek language into dialects. Of these the Ionic and Doric, corresponding with the great divisions of the nation, may be considered as including the rest, the Aeolic being cognate with the Doric, and the Attic descended from the Ionic. To these were subordinate, many local varieties, as the Laconian, Cretan, Rhodian, &c.

The characteristics of the Ionic dialect, like those of the nation, are softness and elegance. It employs an abundance of vowels, and often resolves useless diphthongs into their constituent sounds.

The Ionic language, as the people by whom it was employed approached nearest to the focus of early civilization, appears to have been first cultivated for the purposes of literature. The Ionians are supposed to have passed from Greece to the opposite shares of the Egæan Gulph; about 1076 years before the Christian æra, this emigration forming one of the most remarkable epochs in the early Greek chronology. It is in Asia that we distinguish the first dawn of Grecian literature. Here, at a period removed beyond the records of accurate history, were composed those wonderfu} the events of the Trojan war, and the fortunes of its principal hesongs, celebrating roes, which have constituted, from that early age, the pride and delight of Greece; which became at a later period, the admiration of Rome and its wide empire; which the efforts of succeeding poets have not surpassed, and to which the impartiality of modern criticism has

awardee

awarded an applause, more valuable as more enlightened, and divested of national prepossessions. Nor did the long succession of lonic poets fail during any period of the classic ages of Greece, so that their dialect became as much consecrated to the uses of epic and didactic poetry, as the Attic to that of the drama, or the Doric, to the lyric chorus.

The Acolians, the northern neighbours of the Ionians, on the shores of Asia Minor, were originally inhabitants of Thessaly. This country appears to have been the primitive seat of early Greek fable, or at least to have furnished its principal scenes and subjects, as will appear from a classification of the ancient mythi. The emigration of the Aeolians is said to have preceded that of the Ionians, and to have proceeded immediately from Peloponnesus. Their language differed widely, and partook much of the structure of the Doric, though it is frequently considered as a distinct dialect.

Gran

The Doric dialect is strongly contrasted with the Ionic. It is distinguished by the predominance of strong and full sounds, and presents to the imagination some analogy to the severer character by which the Doric tribes were discriminated from the Ionic. deur and simplicity are its peculiar characteristics. The Doric dialect, appears to have been principally indebted for its cultivation to the philosophers of the south of Italy, a tract of country, from the frequency of its Greek colonies, termed Magna Græcia, and to the poets of Sicily. Many of the lyric poets having employed this language, it was in imitation of them adopted in the chorus of the Attic tragedies. It has also communicated an exquisite charm to the pastoral poesy of Theocritus, which has not been attained by the bucolic writers of any other age or country. We are taught by the ancient grammarians to distinguish two periods of the Doric dialect, the ancient, comparatively harsh and rude; the second, more polished and refined.

The Athenians were an Ionian tribe. The identity of the ancient Attic and Ionic is testified by historians, and supported by the probability of the fact. The few specimens of very early Attic which are But in process of time, they preserved, have much of an Ionic cast. diverged widely from each other. Our earliest considerable specimens of the proper Attic dialect are the writings of Aeschylus. This dialect contains the most valuable part of the Grecian literature, in the departments of dramatic poetry, philosophy, history and oratory. It passed through several changes, the language in the time of Solon being considerably different from that of Thucydides and Plato, and this varying from the style of Lysias and Demosthenes.

At length a common dialect was formed, more allied to the Attic than to the rest, and was considered as the standard Greek. It appears to have come into use about the of Polybius. age

II. The noble invention of letters is a discovery involved in the utmost obscurity. The country where it originated is uncertain; the steps by which it was brought to perfection totally unknown. Such is the ingenuity apparent in this invention,that some philosophers and theologians,

4

theologians, probably without just reason, have considered it as surpassing the attainment of the human faculties, and from its evident Eastern origin, have concluded that it was a subject of divine revelation to the Israelites. The common account purports that Cadmus, son of Agenor king of Phoenicia, arriving in quest of his sister Europa, in the country afterwards called Bæotia, there formed a settlement, and introduced the art of alphabetical writing into Greece. It is observable that the name Cadmus implies an inhabitant of the East. But besides that this event is referred to the age of mythology, and is therefore in all its parts of very dubious credit, it is highly improbable that the introduction of letters into Greece is of such high antiquity, and indeed doubtful whether their invention in any part of the world can be referred to so remote a period, as to precede the Exodus. This much is certain, that the letters in use among the Greeks, in common with those employed in almost every part of the world, have been derived from some common source in the East, as appears both by their figure, and the names by which they are distinguished.

The early alphabet of the Greeks contained, with the exception of the Digamma, only eighteen letters; the aspirated and double consonants, together with the characters denoting the long vowels, not being then adopted. The additional characters are said to have been introduced by Simonides and Epicharmus. The Ionic letters, as they were termed, were not incorporated with the Athenian alphabet till the Archonship of Euclides, that is, Ol. lxxxviii, 2, or before the Christian Era 427, as we are informed by several ancient authors, and especially by a curious scholium on the Phoenissæ of Euripides, in which a various reading is proposed, founded on the difference between the ancient and modern alphabets.

As the alphabet of Greece gradually received these accessions, so it lost one letter which appears to have been originally common tó all the dialects. This is the Digamma, which probably from the circumstance of having been longer retained in use by the Aeolians than by the other tribes, has received the name of Acolic. But the poems of Homer, as was first indicated by the sagacity of Bentley, sufficiently shew that it was anciently employed also by the Ionians. It seems in fact to have been originally nothing more than the Vau of the Orientals, and like that letter to have occupied the sixth place in the alphabet. Its power seems to have been that of the modern W. The Bay one is its legitimate descendant, a character, which, though excluded from the alphabet, retains the numerical power of six. The figure of this sign is not very different from that of the Digamma, under which form also the oriental Vau is very nearly represented on some ancient coins of Palestine.

During a long period after the invention of alphabetical writing, its use appears to have been greatly restricted by the want of substances adapted to the ready reception of characters. Stones, plates of metal, and tablets of wood, were first employed. But these substances could scarcely be used except for short inscriptions, or public

treaties

treatise and decrees. Skins were employed by the Ionians, as we are told by Herodotus (v. 58) but at what period, and in what manner they were prepared, we are not informed. The inner barks of some trees were likewise applied to this purpose. Paper, fabricated from the papyrus, was invented in Egypt. When Ptolemy, jealous of the rivalship of the kings of Pergamus in the magnificent institution of a public library, forbade the exportation of the Egyptian papyrus, the use of parchment is said to have been introduced at that city. If we pay attention to the progress of this art, and the preparation of the various substances employed in its service, we can scarcely suppose that its use was very common, or that it rendered any extensive aid to literature, long before the time of Pisistratus.

The limited use which was made of writing in the early periods of Greek history, appears from the existence and importance of an order of men somewhat resembling the bards and minstrels of other ages and countries, under the name of Rhapsodists, whose employment it was to recite either their own productions, or the popular compositions of their age. Of this art we have an early instance in the Demodocus of the Odyssey, who is introduced as singing in a festive assembly of the Phæacians, the fables of heathen mythology, and the exploits of the heroes at the Trojan war. The profession of the Rhapsodists was long held in esteem, nor was it totally extinct even at a period subsequent to the foundation of Alexandria, at the theatre of which city, Hegesias is said to have recited the works of Herodotus, and Hermophantus those of Homer. Their art fell into contempt, when it degenerated into a mercenary performance, professed by ignorant and arrogant men, who scarcely understood the works which they recited, and more especially when the necessity of it was superseded by the more frequent and ready use of alphabetic writing.

III. The preliminary arts, and the cultivation of life and society, having made the requisite progress, learning and science advanced in Greece with rapid steps. If we take a view of the literature of Egypt and the Oriental nations previous to that of Greece, so far as we can judge from the slight memorials of it which now remain, or from modern productions of the East, it appears indeed to have been impressed with a sort of barbaric grandeur, somewhat resembling that of their efforts in architecture, but to have been greatly deficient in the qualities of grace, order, and harmony and connexion of parts. The science of morals seems to have been confined to short disjoined apoph-. thegms; that of physics to have been clouded by allegory and mythology; oratory to have scarcely existed in a higher state than that in which it is now employed by the uncivilized tribes of America; poetry to have been often majestic and sublime, but often turgid, obscure, and irregular. From this indigested chaos gradually arose the beautiful and regular fabric of Grecian science and learning, and though many of the parts were not brought to perfection, yet the foundation' was firmly laid, the plan was justly traced, and modern genius and judgement, however admirable, have done little more than to contri bute to the completion of the scheme.

F

Poetry

Poetry was, during a long period, the only species of composition employed by the Greeks. Though apparently of more artificial structure, it is uniformly found to precede the existence of cultivated prose. Its figurative language and daring conceptions are suited to the natural enthusiasm of the mind in the early stages of civilization, before it is disciplined to order by the regular occupations of artificial society. Its numbers also, besides the pleasures which they furnish to the ear, lend an important aid to the memory, at a period when the transmission of wisdom is chiefly oral, and the mind has no other resource than its own powers of retention, for the preservation of the knowledge which it has once acquired.

The poetry of Greece must have acquired a high degree of cultivation at a very remote period. It cannot be supposed that the polished poems of Homer, complex yet regular in the structure of their language, rich in their stores of expression, and governed by fixed and exact laws of versification, were the earliest efforts of the muse. Yet the greater part of these poems cannot be referred to a later date than the tenth century before the Christian era, though the state in which we have received them without doubt differs greatly from that in which they originally appeared. The controversy, however, which has arisen on the subject, forbids us to refer with confidence the regular structure of epic poetry to that distant age.

It

It is probable that narrative poetry afterwards flourished in uninterrupted succession. From the time of Homer till the establishment of the Olympiads we have but little knowledge of general history, and still less of the state of learning among the Greeks. At this period, both a clearer and more steady light begins to be thrown upon history, and the efforts of genius become more frequent and successful. was then that the cyclic poets chiefly flourished. Prior to Solon and the Pisistratida, are enumerated the names of many poets who acquired reputation principally in Asia Minor and the adjacent islands. The subjects treated by the cyclic writers, were the circle of mythology, and the events of the Trojan war, related in the order in which they occurred. Arctinus the Milesian was the author of a poem entitled the Aethiopis, celebrating the exploits of Memnon, the son of Aurora. Lesches the Lesbian wrote a piece, of which frequent mention is made, which passed under the name of the lesser Iliad, and seems to have nearly coincided in its subject with a work still remaining, the Paralipomene of Quintus Calaber, who was probably much indebted to the cyclic poems extant in his time. Pisander, who wrote on the exploits of Hercules, flourished about the same time, and possessed an eminent place among the authors of the epic cycle.

Lyric poetry is the next branch of the art whose origin we are able to trace. Contemporary with the cyclic writers, were the great lyric poets of Asia, Terpander, Alcman, Alcæus, Sappho. In the age of Solon, we meet with the names of Ibycus, Simonides and Anacreon. Stesichorus flourished at the same time in Sicily. In a more advanced period, occur Pindar, Bacchylides, and Corinna. The lyric po

etry