etry of the Greeks was divided into several branches, distinguished by their different styles and subjects, among which may be specified the Dithyrambus, a poem sacred to Bacchus, and admitting, and indeed requiring, the boldest flights of enthusiasm in sentiment and language. The xix ode of the second book, and the xxv of the third book of Horace (qui de Græcis pendet et totus est in illis") are probably imitations of some ancient poems of this kind. A few fragments of the Dithyrambi of Pindar are still remaining, and the names of several authors of this species of composition are extant. Didactic poetry commences in some form with Hesiod, who sings the labours of agriculture, and the rules of domestic prudence intermixed with allegory and mythology. Theognis and Phocylides committed to verse the maxims of moral wisdom, though the poem under the name of the latter is probably spurious, and that of the former much interpolated. Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedocles wrote philosophical poems; but it is probable that didactic poetry did not attain its appropriate style and ornaments, till it was employed by the writers of the Alexandrian school. Archilochus is the first certain author of satyrical poetry, though very different in its nature and origin from the satire of the Romans, which they claim as their native production. Archilochus was ranked with the most celebrated poets of Greece. He flourished about the xxiii. Olympiad. The Silli of Timon the Phliasian, of which some fragments remain, were also satyrical poems. chus was a severe personal invective against a rival, and is probably closely imitated in many passages of the Ibis of Ovid. The Ibis of Callima In the elegy occur the early names of Tyrtæus and Callinus. The ancient and later Greek elegy differed widely in their subjects. The former was of a grave and severe cast. Its chosen themes were patriotism and public virtue; it reprobated sloth and cowardice, and held them forth to scorn and detestation; it sang the praises of military valour when exercised in a just cause, and decorated the tombs of the brave; who fell in defence of their country. It was afterwards devoted as by Mimnermus to love and jollity, -Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore jocisque The passage to which Horace here refers is still extant. Most of the Greek elegiac compositions have now perished. It is probable from his style and mythology that Propertius was a close imitator of them, To be continued. Dissertation on the Elysian Fields of Antiquity. BY WILLIAM FALCONER, M. D. OF BATH. Ει δε ὅτων παλαιων τε ποιητών και φιλοσοφων λόγος εσιν αληθης, ωσπερ · είκος εχειν ούτω, και τοις ευσεβεσι των μεταλλαξαντων εςι τις τιμη και προεδρια (καθάπερ λέγεται) και χωρος τις αποτεταγμένος, τουτων ψυχαί, καλας ελπίδας εχειν. EV W διατρίβουσιν αι Plutarch. Consol. ad Apollonium. "Hesperian fables true." Milton. THE opinion that the souls or spirits of men, who had led a virtuous life here on earth, should, after their decease, be translated into a region of happiness, has been nearly universal among every people, and throughout all ages. Both civilized and rude nations have concurred in these sentiments, which argues strongly, were there no other reasons, that they have a foundation in nature and in truth. I do not however mean to enter into any discussion of this kind, but merely to examine some of the opinions of antiquity respecting these rewards of virtue. But previously to entering on the description of these seats of happiness, it may be proper to introduce somewhat respecting the notions of the ancient writers, concerning those beings which were intended to inhabit, or possess them. We learn from Plotinus, that it was the Pythagoric doctrine "that the soul, although it shall quit the present or mortal body, shall never be totally disunited from all body whatsoever." "Where our body is," says the same writer, "there is our soul said to be also. "It may be objected that this cannot be, when there is no longer any body left: we answer that if the Idol (Edwλov) of the soul, be not quite separated from it, why should not the soul itself be said to be there also where its Idol is." Here, by the Idol of the Soul," Dr. Cudworth remarks, Plotinus seems to mean, an aërial or spirituous body, quickened and vitalized, adhering to it after death." To this Porphyry, who was, as Dr. Cudworth observes, a follower of Plotinus, adds, that “the Soul is never divested quite of all body, but hath always some body or other joined with it, suitable and agreeable to its own present disposition, either a purer, or an impurer one." Philoponus, another Philosopher of the same sect, adds, "that the rational Soul, as to its own energy, is separable from all body; but but that the irrational part or life thereof, is separable only from this present or gross body, but not from all body whatever; but hath after death an aërial or spiritual body accompanying it, in which it acteth." One of the purposes of this Edwλor, or attenuated, but still material, vehicle, thus united with the Soul, is said to be, in order to render the Soul capable of being punished, in order for its purification and amendment. For the Soul, being in itself incorporeal, was held by the philosophers to be incapable of suffering, unless when united. to body, which being liable to be affected by heat, cold, and external objects, may make the Soul sensible of pain by sympathy, in the same manner as we experience in the present life. This aerial vehicle, or Indumentum of the Pythagoreans, corresponds nearly with the Edwort of the poet, which was not entirely divested of materiality, but still so much so, as to be an object of sight only, not of touch or corporeal feeling, and like what Lucretius relates of the nature of the Gods, which manuum tactum suffugitque ictum. Lucret. v. l. 151. Ulysses describes the shade or Eidwo of his mother Anticlea in the same manner. Thricet in my arms I strove her shade to bind, Pope. Eneas gives the same account of his father's shade which he met with in Elysium. Thrice round his neck his eager arms he threw, Pitt's Virgil, b. vi. l. 373, &c. Ter See Cudworth's Intellectual System, book i. ch. v. p. 786. ✦ the Eldho was thought to be immortal as well as the vʊx, Ολβία δ' επανθεί αισα λυσιπονον τελευταν, και σωμα μεν πάντων έπεται θανατω περισθένεια ζων δε λείπεται αιώνος· είδωλον γαρ μόνον επί εκ θεών. Fragm. Pindari, citat. in Plu tarchi Cons. ad Apollonium. * Τρις μεν εφωςμηθεν ελεειν τε με θυμός ανώγε Lucian describes the inhabitants of the Elysian fields in the same manner; "These," says he, "have no bodies, or flesh, and their substance is no object of the sense of touch or feeling. They exhibit a form and an appearance only. Notwithstanding their incorporeal nature, they stand still, move, understand, and emit sounds of human voice. It should seem that the soul itself wandered about divested of every thing bnt the appearance of body. Were you not to attempt to touch them, you would not believe that what you saw was no subject of touch." Lucian, Ver. hist. l. ii. 395, edit, Bourdelot. 1615. Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum, Virgil. Silius Italicus has borrowed the description and nearly the words of His alacer collo, amplexa materna petebat, The ghosts of departed persons which were supposed to appear in the present world, were believed to be the Edwλa, or attenuated vehicles (though not absolutely the immaterial coverings) of the x or immaterial Soul. Thus the ghost of Darius which appears in the Persæ of Eschylus is called the Eidor Aagstov, and that of Polydorus in the Hecuba of Euripides is called the Είδωλον Πολυδώρου. In compliance perhaps with these opinions, our Saviour Jesus Christ, in order to prove to his disciples the resurrection of his body, and that it was not his ghost or spirit, that appeared unto them; directs them, to "Touch and handle him," for says he, a spirit* hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." Agreeably to which argument of our Saviour Christ, is, as Dr. Cudworth+ observes, that of Apollonius Tyanæus mentioned in Philostratus, "Touch‡ me and handle me, and if you find me to avoid the touch, then you may conclude me to be a spirit or ghost, (that is, a soul departed) but, if I firmly resist the same, then believe me really to live, and not to have yet cast off the body." These Edwλa preserved not only the general resemblance of the bodies of the persons to whom they belonged, but even carried with them the marks of the wounds and maims which the respective bodies had undergone; and not of those wounds only which were mortal, but such also has had been inflicted at former periods. Atque hic Priamiden laniatum corpore toto Ora nanusque ambas, populataque tempora raptis Here Priam's Son, Deiphobus, he found, Æneid. vi. 494. Pitt's Translation. Mr. Luc. xxiv. 39. ότι πνεύμα σάρκα και οστέα ουκ έχει καθώς εμε θεωρειτε εχοντα. Cudworth Intell. System, p. 804. * λαβου με, έφη, καν μεν διαφύγω σε είδαλον ειμι, ει δε υπομείναιμι απλομενος πείθε και ζην τε με και με αποβεβληκεναι το σώμα. Philostr. Vit. Apoll. Tyanai. Mr. Warton observes in a note on this passage, "That the mangled phantom above described is drawn according to the Philosophy of Plato, who teaches in his Gorgias, that the dead not only retain all the passions of the soul, but all the marks and blemishes of the body." In like manner the image, or ghost, of Hector, that appeared to Eneas on the fatal night of the destruction of Troy, is painted with all the wounds Hector received in defence of his country, and with all the marks of insult, which were offered to his body after his death. Tempus erat quo prima quies mortalibus ægris Incipit, et dono Divam gratissima serpit: In somnis ecce ante oculos, mastissimus Hector Twas now the time when first kind Heav'n bestows L. ii. 1. 270. Such he appear'd, as when Achilles' car In Homer the shade or image of Patroclus not only exhibits his figure, eyes, and visage, but the cloaths also which he had been accustomed to wear. When lo!* the Shade, before his closing eyes, In the same robe he living wore, he came, Pope's Homer, b. xx.ii. 1. 78. Madame Dacier has given a good explanation of this passage. "The Edwλ or Image in which the mind was lodged, was supposed to resemble the body exactly in shape, magnitude, and features; for this, being in the body, as a statue in its mold, so soon as it goes forth |