manity, as impossible; and this amiable persuasion should be much more strongly entertained, where the transgression wars with nature as well as virtue. But why are we not allowed to indulge in the presumption? Why are we officiously reminded that there have been such instances of depravity?

Hipparchus, who now maintained at Athens the power which his father Pisistratus had usurped, was one of those elegant princes who have polished the fetters of their subjects. He was the first, according to Plato, who edited the poems of Homer, and commanded them to be sung by the rhapsodists at the celebration of the Panathenæa. As his court was the galaxy of genius, Anacreon should not be absent. Hipparchus sent a barge for him; the poet embraced

the

the invitation, and the muses and the loves were wafted with him to Athens *.

The manner of Anacreon's death was singular. We are told that in the eighty-fifth year of his age he was choked by a grape-stonet; and however we may smile at their enthusiastic partiality, who pretend that it was a peculiar indulgence of

* There is a very interesting French poem founded upon this anecdote, imputed to Desyvetaux, and called "Anacreon Citoyen."

+Fabricius appears not to trust very implicitly in this story. "Uvæ passæ acino tandem suffocatus, si credimus Suidæ in voorns; alii enim hoc mortis genere periisse tradunt Sophoclem." Fabricii Bibliothec. Græc. lib. ii. cap. 15. It must be confessed that Lucian, who tells us that Sophocles was choked by a grape-stone, in the very same treatise mentions the longevity of Anacreon, and yet is silent on the manner of his death. Could he have been ignorant of such a remarkable coincidence, or, knowing, could he have neglected to remark it? See Regnier's introduction to his Anacreon.

Heaven which stole him from the world by this easy and characteristic death, we cannot help admiring that his fate should be so emblematic of his disposition. Cælius Calcagninus alludes to this catastrophe in the following epitaph on our poet:

*Then, hallow'd Sage, those lips which pour'd along The sweetest lapses of the cygnet's song,

A grape has clos'd for ever!

Here let the ivy kiss the poet's tomb,

Here let the rose he lov'd with laurels bloom,
In bands that ne'er shall sever!

* At te, sancte senex, acinus sub tartara misit;
Cygnea clausit qui tibi vocis iter.

Vos, hederæ, tumulum, tumulum vos cingite lauri
Hoc rosa perpetuo vernet odora loco;

At vitis procul hinc, procul hinc odiosa facessat,
Quæ causam diræ protulit, uva, necis,

Creditur ipse minus vitem jam Bacchus amare,

In vatem tantum quæ fuit ausa nefas.

Cælius Calcagninus has translated or imitated the epigrams

εις την Μύρωνος βεν which are given under the name of Anacreon.

But

But far be thou, oh! far, unholy vine,
By whom the favourite minstrel of the Nine
Expir'd his rosy breath;

Thy god himself now blushes to confess,
Unholy vine! he feels he loves thee less,
Since poor Anacreon's death!

There can scarcely be imagined a more delightful theme for the warmest speculations of fancy to wanton upon, than the idea of an intercourse between Anacreon and Sappho. I could wish to believe that they were cotemporary: any thought of an interchange between hearts so congenial in warmth of passion and delicacy of genius, gives such play to the imagination, that the mind loves to indulge in it; but the vision dissolves before historical truth; and Chamaleon and Hermesianax, who are the source of

the

the supposition, are considered as having merely indulged in a poetical anachronism *.

ર

To infer the moral dispositions of a poet from the tone of sentiment which pervades his works, is sometimes a very fallacious analogy: but the soul of Anacreon speaks so unequivocally through his odes, that we may consult them as the faithful mirrors of his heart t. We find him

there

* Barnes is convinced of the synchronism of Anacreon and Sappho; but very gratuitously. In citing his authorities, it is strange that he neglected the line which Fulvius Ursinus has quoted, as of Anacreon, among the testimonies to Sappho : Ειμι λαβων εισαρας Σαπφω παρθενον ἁδύφωνον.

Fabricius thinks that they might have been cotemporary, but considers their amour as a tale of imagination. Vossius rejects the idea entirely: as also Olaus Borrichius, &c. &c.

† An Italian poet, in some verses on Belleau's translation of Anacreon, pretends to imagine that our bard did not feel as he wrote.

Lyæum,