preserved of the writings of Callinus*, the probable inventor of pentameter verse, and the precursor of Tyrtæus in war elegy. The history of Archilochus may well be supposed to have been exaggerated, but before his name could have become a by-word for the terrors of satire, the fulminations of his resounding iambics (his nxnetes cauẞo) must have dazzled and electrified the ancient world. Yet the few lines ascribed to him, which have been preserved (too few and too casually gleaned to give us an insight into any writer's character) happen to express rather a firmly suffering than a savage spirit, and are certainly not like fragments of works of genius, that were meant to drive his enemies to despair. Still scantier are the relics of Alcman, who is constantly spoken of as a graceful amatory poet, and distinguished among the masters of the lyre by the epithet delicious (yλukus) by an epigrammatist evidently acquainted with his works. A scrap I have named Callinus first in the series of poets after Hesiod, on the authority of Strabo, who supposes him earlier than Archilochus, and quotes a line from him (Callinus), alluding to the Cimmerian irruption into Asia, which apparently fixes his date at the very beginning of the Olympiads. I refer the reader (unwilling to trouble him with chronological discussions) to Chauffepié's continuation of Bayle's Dictionary (article Callinus). Nor, though Athenæus is somewhat at variance with Strabo respecting the date of this poet, shall I stop to balance their testimonies. The fragment of Callinus above alluded to, is given in the "Aralecta" of Brunck and Jacobs, and others, and in the "Poeta Minores" (p. 426) of our own elegant scholar Gaisford. It is supposed to have been addressed by the poet to his countrymen the Ephesians, when engaged in war with their neighbours the Magnesians. It can be traced to no earlier preserver than Stobæus of the 5th Christian century, but I know of no direct argument against its authenticity. Camerarius, a distinguished luminary of the 16th century, thought so highly of its spirit, that he translated it into Latin, and inserted it in an oration which he addressed to all the powers of Europe, exhorting them to unite against the Turks. Archilochus is put by Fabricius, on the authority of Herodotus (i. 12), and Cicero (Tusc. Quest.), as the contemporary of Gyges, and as flourishing in the 15th Olympiad; but he is generally placed by chronologists within the 7th century B. C. There is an interesting, though rather credulous detail of the traditions respecting him in Gillies's History of Greece. The article Archilochus in Bayle's Dictionary, in my opinion, evinces a great deal more research than impartiality respecting the character of this terrific old satirist. Pindar is quoted, to shew that be despised him as an odious dealer in detraction (2d Pythic.) But Pindar was a lover of the great, and might not be fair evidence on the subject. It is by no means clear, however, or rather there is a manifest improbability, that the old poet Archilochus was pointed at in the 2d Pythic. Pindar says he had seen him; but the great Iambist had been dead for ages before Pindar was born. He had seen him, however, he says, at a distance, èκas; & rather odd way of saying that he had heard of a dead man. Not even Heyne's high authority in conjecturing (for he only conjectures) that éxas alludes to distance of time, can demonstrate that there never was but one man of the name of Archilochus in Greece, (the name, by the way, occurs in Homer,) or that the Archilochus who is mentioned was not Pindar's contemporary. The story of Lycambes, who had refused our poet his daughter in marriage, having afterwards hanged himself in consequence of Archilochus's satires, may sound very credible; but one would fain hope that the sequel was only a piece of pathetic scandal, namely, that the beauty who had jilted the poet, and another young lady of the family, tucked themselves up after their father's example. In an epigram describing the great lyric poets, preserved in Grotius's, and several other anthologies. of his verses, which Virgil probably imitated†, seems to correspond with this character, though, perhaps, the suavity of the original will be little recognized in translation: "The mountain-summits sleep, glens, cliffs, and caves, Its monsters rest, whilst wrapt in bower and spray Our regret for the loss of so much Greek lyric poetry may be fairly extended to productions of a much humbler character than those of Alcman and Archilochus. An ample preservation of their popular songs would have thrown incalculably amusing lights on their national manners. The multifarious character of their songs marks how much this gay people delighted in verse and vocal melody. Besides their war-songs, their love-songs, their songs for the bath and for convivial parties, they had strains allotted to almost every description of labour. The bakers, the reapers, the wool-combers, the weavers, the rowers at the oar, the drawers of water, the shepherds, the ploughmen, and the vinedressers, had all their peculiar songs; so that their streets, and fields, and gardens, and harbours, must have constantly resounded with the notes of cheerful harmony. The hired servants sang a particular song as they went to their work §. An ingenious antiquary has even found materials for a treatise on the strains of their beggars ||. With speculations on this last species of poetry, however, it would, of course, not be very inspiring to the imagination to indulge ourselves; I shall, therefore, only attend to compositions where the peculiar beauty of Greek genius is visible, and in the remainder of my lecture, shall treat of their principal poets antecedent to the Attic Drama. To be continued. ALCMAN. “Ευδουσιν δ ̓ ὀρέων κορυφαί τε καὶ φαραγγες Πρώνες τε καὶ χαράδραι· Φυλά τε ἕρπετά θ' ὅσσα τρέφει μέλαινα γαῖα Θῆρες ὀρεσκῶοί τε καὶ γένος μελισσών· Καὶ κνώδαλ ̓ ἐν βένθεσσι Πορφυρᾶς ὁλός· ἕνδουσιν δ' διωνῶν Φύλα τανυπτερύγων. + In Virgil's celebrated description of night in the fourth Æneid, "Nox erat et placidum carpebant," &c. The hilarity of the ancient Greeks is marked in their very form of salutation. When they greeted a neighbour, they bade him rejoice; a Roman bade him be safe, or strong. § Athenæus, xiv. p. 619. Ilgen's Poescos mendicorum Græcorum specimina, &c. GREECE. THE diurnal press of Germany has lately presented the public with such an account of the progress and present state of the Grecian insurrection as, when known, must, if correct, produce a very material alteration in the sentiments with which the existing struggle in Turkey has hitherto been regarded in this country. Our Continental neighbours, especially some of the most enlightened classes amongst the Germans, have been from the first all enthusiasm upon the subject of the emancipation of the Greeks, and bitterly reproach the English with the apathy which it is asserted they display, with their want of zeal for liberty, and of veneration for the name of Greece. These crimes, like most of those with which the British nation is so freely charged, are ascribed to its commercial spirit; and England is supposed to be induced to favour the Turks, by a prophetic jealousy of the future navy of Independent Greece. Deep, indeed, would be our regret, could we apprehend that there was any foundation for such charges; and although the motive to which they are attributed is so truly laughable, that it appears almost absurd to say any thing in its refutation, the subject itself is too serious not to require notice. We, therefore, beg leave to offer to the accusers of our country a few words, in extenuation of this alleged lukewarmness of sympathy for the Greeks. We will not pause to dwell upon the results, or the nature of the recent Italian attempts at revolution, which have certainly not been encouraging to those who imagine, that a nation sunk in the lowest degradation of slavery, can at once throw off the brutifying effects of such a state, as the serpent his skin, and emerge bright, youthful, regenerated, capable of appreciating and rationally enjoying full and entire liberty, but proceed at once to European Turkey. The British public may have been misled by want of information, but from what has hitherto been known, there has been no reason to consider the point at issue any thing more than whether the Greeks should be slaves to the Turks, or to the Russians. Now, we do not mean to deny that it might be very desirable for the Greeks to effect a change of masters, by which they would be subjected to a nation professing the same religion with themselves, instead of a tribe of Mahometan Tartars;-who, after receiving from the oppressed Christian, by way of tax or tribute, the stipulated price of a licence for each individual to wear-not hair-powder, but his own head upon his own shoulders for the year next ensuing, are, it is said, occasionally seized with conscientious scruples touching such compounding of infidelity; and when this occurs, in order to rectify their error, although they do not judge it requisite to return the money, they have recourse to hanging, impaling, and such other persuasive methods of conversion, as may leave the letter of the compact inviolate. We believe the orthodox Catholic argument by fire has never been adopted in that unenlightened country. But, though we allow that this transfer would have been a material improvement of the condition of the transferred, we cannot see that there was much in the business calculated to excite enthusiasm either for liberty, or for the memory of the ancient Greeks. A general European crusade might, indeed, have been thought analogous to the circumstance of the actual oppression and wholesale murder of our fellow Christians by the Turks, and it would, perhaps, have been the most reasonable crusade that ever was undertaken. But with respect to this country, when the enormous preponderance of Russia in Europe, (to say nothing of the Czar's late increase of power, as well as of influence in Asia, and of the consequent possible danger to the British empire in India) is considered, it is really expecting from England a degree of disinterestedness more usually found in romance than in ordinary life, to require that she should be very zealous in promoting and effecting such transfer. But if we may credit the statement of the Allgemeine Zeitung, this view of the condition and prospects of the modern inhabitants of Athens and Sparta was wholly founded in error. The question actually is, whether Greece shall or shall not once more exist as a free state, whether the Greeks do or do not possess resolution and resources sufficient to accomplish their own emancipation, the expulsion of their oppressors, and the establishment of their country's independence, if not absolutely unassisted, at least with no more aid than they may reasonably hope to derive from private and voluntary contributions and auxiliaries. The Grecian navy, we are here told, consists of one hundred and fifty vessels mounting from fifteen to thirty-five guns, and of six hundred and fifty smaller craft. These vessels are almost entirely private property, and belong chiefly to wealthy merchants, established in the three small islands of Hydria, Spezia, and Psara. This navy has no admiral; it is commanded, as it is formed, in common; the authority exercised by the different proprietors and their deputies, being proportionate to the amount of the respective contributions. Does not this description recal to the reader's mind, the composition of the Grecian fleet that gained the battle of Salamis, and the tenday-about generals, who led the Athenian troops to Marathon? Be that as it may, this navy, so collected and so conducted, has repeatedly defeated its antagonists, and is now, divided into four fleets, occupied in blockading the ports to which the discomfited Turkish ships have retired. This account is, it must be confessed, rather startling, from its extreme opposition to all our preconceived ideas; yet it may receive some confirmation, making due allowance for friendly exaggeration, from the information which has of late years been communicated by several intelligent travellers respecting the Grecian islands, whose condition has always been very different from that of the main land. In fact, it appears that the Turks have no insular propensities, and have therefore given themselves little conceru about the Archipelago, beyond imposing and receiving tribute. The consequence of this fortunate indifference has been the superiority, in every respect, of the Greeks of the islands over their brethren of the continent. Not that it is meant to be insinuated, that even they bear any apparent traces of their relationship to their renowned predecessors, but they have long enjoyed a commercial prosperity, and an individual security and comfort, very beneficial to the human character, and wholly unknown to the slave under the immediate eye of a master. The land forces of the Greeks, we learn from the same authority, are also divided into four corps d'armée of from twenty to forty thousand men each, stationed in, and at present almost undisputedly occupying the Peloponnesus, Ætolia, and Thessaly, and, in conjunction with Ali Pasha, Epirus. The province of Thessaly is represented as being, from its geographical position, a point of the highest importance; and since it has been cleared from the Turks, the influence of the leaders who hold it, amongst whom we observe a modern Odysseus, has induced the neighbouring province of Macedonia to declare in favour of freedom. But a piece of intelligence which, if correct, is still more important than the numbers under arms, is, that the present insurrection had been long premeditated and organized, although the moment of its breaking out seems to have been determined, and probably was precipitated, by the attack made upon Ali Pasha by the Porte. We are told of a regular association previously instituted for the purpose of liberating Greece, called the Hetaria, though the date of its establishment is not mentioned, which directs and governs the proceedings of the leading men, or Kapitanys. To explain the nature of these Kapitanys, and the constitution of the Grecian land forces, we must recur to the period of the Ottoman conquests. The mountainous districts of the country appear never to have been thought by the Turks worth the trouble of subduing; they were satisfied with securing the possession of the towns and plains. Naturally, all such Greeks as still valued their liberty withdrew to the mountains, where they arranged themselves in bands under regular leaders, named Kapitanys: they have continued in that form ever since, subsisting chiefly by plunder; but we are assured that the Turks alone are exposed to their depredations, whilst they scrupulously abstain from robbing a Christian. The Pashas have found it most convenient to make terms with these Kapitanys; and in consideration of their nominal submission to the Porte, give them pay and provisions, committing to their superintendence districts designated by the term Armatolion. When the celebrated Ali first sought to make himself independent of the Porte, he courted the Kapitanys, and induced many of them, with their bands, to enter his service. When he thought himself sufficiently strong, he began to assassinate the chiefs. The bands of his victims, and the surviving Kapitanys, were offended, and left him in anger. Accordingly, when the Porte last year sent an army to put down Ali, they very naturally lent a willing ear to the Ottoman general's invitation to join him against the common enemy, Ali. They did so join; and, in fact, formed the principal strength of the Grand Seignior's forces. But Turkish insolence and Mahometan. iutolerance did not permit this alliance to last. The Kapitanys were insulted, and one of their number was detained as a prisoner upon some old complaint. The other leaders, in high indignation, were about to rescue their comrade by force; but here the Hetaria interposed, and |