706. Poetry is the glowing language of inpassioned feeling, generally found in measured lines, and often in rhyme. Most ancient people have had their qoets; and among the Hebrews they were called prophets. David was an inspired poet of the Hebrews; Homer, one of the earliest poets of the Greeks: Ossian, an ancient poet of the Scots: Taliesen, an ancient poet of the Welsh:And Odin, an early poet of the Scandinavians. 707. The Greeks were the fathers of poetry, literature, philosophy, and arts. Homer was the first, and the prince of poets; and he celebrated the siege of Troy in the Iliad and Odysey, two epic poems, which never have, and perhaps, never can be surpassed. In the same line of poetical composition, he was followed, after 900 years, by Virgil, in the Eneid: By Tasso, after another 1500 years, in the Jerusalem Delivered: And by Milton, about 150 years ago, in Paradise Lost-the finest poem ever written after the Iliad. 708. The Greeks, besides, boasted of their Pindar and Anacreon, in lyric poetry; and of Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, and Eschylus, in dramatic poetry. After them, among the Romans, followed Ovid and Tibullus; among dramatists, Plautus, and Terence; of didactic and philosophic poets, they had also Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, and Silius Italicus. All these were so many, miracles of of human genius; and their works afford so many models of their respective species of composition, Obs. Most of the works of the ancients have, in senti ment, if not in spirit, been translated into English, Thus, we have Pope's and Cowper's Homer; Dryden's Virgil; West's Pindur; Colman's Euripides and Sophocles; Garth's (vid # "Busby's and Good's Lucretius; Francis'a Horace; and others, 3. 709. Approaching nearer to our own times, as the literature of the ancients, after a long night of moukish superstition and darkness, was revived in Italy in the 15th century, so the first exertions of modern literature were made in that country: Hence, their Dante, Ariosto, Petrarch, and" Tasso, who were followed, in France, by Racine, Corneille, Boileau, Voltaire, Fontaine, and Delille: And, in England, by Chaucer, Spencer, Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Young, Collins, and Gray. 710. Besides these great names, we have had in England, at least, twenty other poets; whose works would vie with others of any age or country. Thus, we have in didactic and sentimental poetry, our Goldsmith, Cowper, Darwin, Mason, Addison, Johnson, Akenside, Armstrong, Porteus, Blackmore, W. Dyer, Robinson, Watts, Cumberland, Dermody, and Beattie.t to to the "In satirical poetry, Butler, Anstey, and Churchill. In pastoral, Shenstone, Gay, Cunningham, and Ramsey. In lyric poetry, Cowley, Smith, and Burns. Obs. Among admired living poets, may be named Wolcot, Crabbe, Roscoe, Southey, Coleridge, Rogers, Campbell, Bloomfield, Wordsworth, Cottle, Sotheby, Colman, Shee, Taylor, Barbauld, Byron, Moore, Ma thias, Scott, Dibdin, and some others; whose merito. rious works will be impartially judged and estimated by a future age; but to which, for the present, we can only wish due immortality. "The Poet! hallow'd, honoured name! "But oh! what greener flowers shall bloom "The fairies all shall leave their cells, "To weep around the hallow'd spot; " *With liberal hand, and sparkling eye, NEELL. 711. Poetry is classed under the heads epic, or heroic; dramatic; or representative; lyric, or suited to music, as odes, songs, &c.; didactic, or instructive: elegiac, or sentimental and af fecting; satirical, epigrammatie, or witty and ludicrous; and pastoral, or descriptive of rustic life. Versification, in the English language, depends on the length and shortness of syllables, the modulation of the accents, and the disposi tion of the pauses. It is either rhyme, or recurring rhyme, alternate, or interchanging rhyme, or in triplets of three lines; or blank verse, the noblest and grandest of all our mea sures. 712. The heroic verse consists generally of ten syllables; and its harmony depends on the regular distribution of accented and unaccented syllables; and its character of solemnity or liveliness, depends on the order, and length or shortness of those syllables. Thus, when the accent is on every other syl lable, it is called iambic verse; as, A shepherd's boy, he seeks no higher name, Led forth his flock beside the silver Thame. 713. The monotony of recurring accents, is obviated by the varied disposition of the cesural pause. When this pause is on the fourth syllable, the strain is smooth and airy; as, Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream | in smoother murmur flows. Or, it is still quicker, when placed at the second syllable; as, Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain. bor, But, is in first instance, our heroic measure admits of great variety in its composition: Soft is being troches; and the being a pyrrhic, and the smooth stream a spondee. 【 2** *14:”Thể” following afford instances off va rious pauses, which give as many different of fects to the finest O friend, may each domestic bliss be thine & #1^{ Or, Or, Me let the tender office long engage, O cruel, beauteous, I ever lovely, I terf Is it in heaven | a crime to love too well?l 715. The anapestic, is where the accent falls on every third syllable; as, I am monarch of all 】 survey, My right there is nòne to dispute : Or, Various other kinds of verses are to be found in the works of the poets; but the above are the most common. 716. The first historian among the GRABKS was Herodotus; they had also Thucydides and Xenophon. nt (。,『 The orations of Demosthenes and Isocrates are master-pieces of eloquence. The moral writings of Epictetus, Esop, and Plato, are deservedly cherished.. ・・ In philosophy, Aristotle was a universal and wonderful genius; and Euclid and Pythagoras were the fathers of geometry and music.. |