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the twenty-fecond of this month happens the autumnal equinox, at which period the days and nights are equal all over the earth. 29. This, as well as the vernal equinox, often attended with heavy forms of wind and rain, which throw down much of the fruit yet remaining on the trees. 30. At the end of the month the leaves of many trees lofe their given colours, and begin their grave autumnal tints, indicative of the approaching defolation of winter.

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF Pindar,

THE CELEBRATED GRECIAN POET.

INDAR, the Prince of Lyric Poets, was a native

about the 76th Olympiad, or 520 years before Chrift. His family was of the lowest clafs. His father Scopelinus (or Diophantus) being of the lowest order of muficians. Many ftrange events are recorded of him at his birth, as we are told of Homer and Virgil, which, for the fake of veracity, is here rejected. From his earlieft years he was trained by his father to the study of mufic; and Lafus Hermiones is mentioned as his tutor in poetry, though the meannefs of his father's fortune, it is thought, deprived him of the excellent advantages of a learned education; on which occafion, Voffius fays, he used to boast that nature was his only guide in poetry. Whereas his rivals were obliged to have recourse to art; on which account he used to com. pare himself to the foaring eagle, and the creeping tribe of poets to bafe croaking ravens. His genius, naturally wild and luxuriant, was corrected by the leffons of his fair countrywomen, Myrtis or Mylto, and Corinna; whofe poetical productions had acquired unrivalled fame, not only in Thebes, but in many other cities of

Greece.

His first public efforts were displayed at the mufical contests celebrated in his native country, where, after conquering Myrtis, he was five times overcome by Corinna; but if we may believe the voice of fcandal, Corinna owed her repeated victories more to the charms of her beauty, (for fhe is faid to have been the handsomest woman of her age) than to the fuperiority of her genius. But in the four public affemblies where females were not admitted, he carried off the prize from every competitor.

The glory his poetry both acquired and bestowed at Olympia, made the greatest generals and statesmen ambitious of the honour of his acquaintance. To the temple of the Gods, and especially the celebrated temple of Delphi, his hymns and pœeans drew an amazing concourfe of ftrangers and Greeks. The priests, prophets, and other minifters of Apollo, fenfible of the benefit they derived from his mufical reputation, repaid the merit of his fervices by erecting him a ftatue in the moft confpicuous part of the temple, where he used to fit on an iron ftooi, and recite his verfes to the honour of Apollo. They likewife declared by their oracle, Pythia, that Pindar fhould be honoured by one half of the firft-fruit offerings, annually prefented by the devout retainers of the Delphic fhrine. At the Hermonian feftival, a portion of the facred victim was appropriated, in the time of Plutarch, to the defcendants of this poet.

Thus was Pindar, during his life-time, affociated to the honours of a God, and after his death was treated with every mark of refpect that public admiration can bestow; for the beautiful monument erected to him in the Hippodrome of Thebes, was a fource of admiration after the revolution of fix centuries. The inveterate hoftility of the Spartans, when they destroyed the capital of their ancient and cruelest enemies, fpared the houfe of Pindar, which was equally refpected in a future age, by the warlike and impetuous fon of Philip, and the giddy triumph of his Macedonian captains.

And

And the ruins of this houfe were to be seen in the time of Paufanias, who lived under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the Stoic philofopher and Emperor of the Romans, who flourished about 161 years after Chrift; fo that this cottage ftood at least 681 years.

By favouring and applauding the Athenians, who were enemies to the Theban ftate, he incurred the refentment of his countrymen, who laid him under a fevere fine; but the city of Athens made him a prefent of double the fine, and erected a statue to his honour. The indignity of his defeat by Corinna, did not discourage Hiero, King of Syracufe, from employing Pindar's mufe in celebrating his victories in the Grecian games. This prince obtained the prize in the Olympic and Pythic games, and was alfo victor in the chariot course. These fucceffes were celebrated by the poet, who bestowed the highest praises upon his patron. to whom he afcribed all the virtues of a wife and excellent prince. He made it his prayer to the Gods, that they would bestow upon him all the happiness man was capable of ;-they obliged him with an eafy death; for he died fuddenly in the public theatre, as he was leaning on the knees of a favourite boy. Thus died this celebrated poet in the 66th, though fome fay 80th year of his age, in the 86th Olympiad.

The lyric poetry of the Greeks united the pleafures of the ear, of the eye, and of the understanding. In the various natures of entertainment confifted its effertial merit and perfection; and he only could be entitled "the Prince of Lyric Poets," whofe verfes happily confpired with the general tendency of this complicated exhibition; by the univerfal confent of antiquity, this poet was Pindar, who, ever fince the eulogium of Horace, has been extolled for the brilliancy of his imagination, the figurative boldnefs of his diction, the fire, animation, and enthusiasm of his genius.

Pindaruma

Pindarum quifquis ftudet emulari, &c. &c *.
HORACE, 1.4. Ode 2.

Quintilian fays, that Pindar was, beyond all difpute, the moft confiderable of all the nine Lyric poets; whether we confider his vaft genius, or the beauty of his fentences and figures, for the abundance of his thoughts and the agreeable variety of his expreffions: and that in refpect of his great eloquence, which flows like a torrent, Horace might well think it was impoffible for any man ever to imitate him.

Rapin, in his reflections on Ariftotle's book of Poefy, remarks, that Pindar was great in his designs, vaft in his thoughts, bold in his imaginations, happy in his expreffions, and eloquent in his difcourfe; but, as Rapin obferves, his great vivacity hurries him, fometimes, beyond his judgment; his panegyrics are perpetual digreffions, where, rambling from his fubject, he carries the reader from fable to fable, from illufion to illufion, and from one chimæra to another. But this irregularity is a part of the character of the ode, whofe nature and genius require tranfport.

Gafpar Barthius calls Pindar an ingenious author, and one who poffeffed an indifferent good ftock of learning, with which character Voffius likewife agrees.

"The writings of Pindar," fays Melmoth, "abound with grandeur, fublimity, and rapture, and are as a ftandard of the greatest elevation and tranfport to which poetry can poffibly advance. By his pompous and daring expreffions, and by his measures, pathos, and beautiful irregularity; he has fo fuccefsfully triumphed over all other writers, as to be defervedly ftyled a perfect mafter of the fublime, and Prince of Lyric Poets.

The panegyrics bestowed upon Pindar," fays Gillies, "have, generally, more their regularity and wildnefs of the ode, than the coldnefs of criticifm. Great

*Mr. Cowley has admirably paraphrafed this encomium, which cannot be here inferted on account of its length.

as

as his ideas are, Pindar is less distinguished by the sublimity of his thoughts and fentiments, than by the grandeur of his language and expreffion; and that his "inimitable" excellence confifts rather in the energy, propriety, and magnificence of his ftyle, fo fingularly fitted out to affociate with the lengthened tones of mu fic and the figured movements of the dance. The uniform cadence, the fmooth volubility, and the light importance of ordinary compofition, are extremely l adapted to this affociation, which bringing every single word into notice, and fubjecting it to obfervation and remark, must expofe its natural infignificance and poverty; but as much as the language of ordinary writers would lofe, that of Pindar muft gain, by fuch an examination; his words are chofen with an habitual care, and possess a certain dignity of weight, which, the more they are contemplated, the more they are admired.-It is this magnificence of diction, thofe compound epithets, and thofe glowing expreffions, which the coldness of criticifm has condemned as extravagant, that form the tranfcendant merit of the Pindaric ftyle, and diftinguifh it more than the general flow of the verfification, which is commonly fo free, that it bears lefs refemblance to poetry than to a beautiful and harmonious profe. The majefty of compofition equalled, and in the opinion of Dionyfius, even furpaffed the value of the materials: he adds, "that Pindar gives his words a certain firmness and folidity of confiftence, feparated them at wide intervals, placed them on a broad bafis, and raised them to a lofty eminence, from which they darted those irradiations of fplendour which astonished the moft diftant beholder." "But," fays Gillies, "it must be confidered, that the works of Pindar are recited now to a great difadvantage. They were anciently fang to large affemblies of men, accompanied with mufic and dancing, by which they were formerly ennobled and adorned. They are now read in the clofet without patriotic emotion, and without perfonal intereft. Such VOL. VIII.

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