as Homer describes Calchas to have been, in the Iliad, when he bargains for safety before he will risk offending Agamemnon. A Hebrew prophet would have disdained to have sought shelter even behind the arm of Achilles.-The elevation of the prophetic character in Israel made it monopolize the national genius. All that was lofty and ideal in the Hebrew mind sprang upwards to meet the divine commission. Hence, prediction, which elsewhere was only verse, became in Judæa picturesque and imaginative poetry. Surrounded though Delphi was with poetical associations, we are certain that its oracular responses were never poetically famous. Versemakers were retained in the temple for the express purpose of putting the ravings of the Pythia into proper diction. Yet we find Plutarch apologizing for the mediocrity of the Delphic verses, and acquitting Apollo of blame, on the ground that he was answerable only for the meaning and not the metre. Lucian is not so good natured: he makes Momus rally the God of Delphi on the ambiguity of his style, alleging that it was a mere refuge from the distress of answering posing questions, and declaring the bad prosody of the Pythian measures to be a proof that the Muses and his oracular Godship were not on the best possible terms. In the Cassandra of Lycophron we have no doubt an entire and regular Greek poem of a prophetic character, and one which we are certain to have been composed before the Christian era. It contains Cassandra's predictions of the misfortunes of Troy. This obscure work was written by a poet sometimes ranked in the poetical Pleiades of the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus, though the scholiasts are not agreed as to his having been one of the seven luminaries of that constellation, which, if all its orbs had been like Lycophron, would have been, indeed, rather a dim one. His poem, for aught that is known to the contrary, may be a learned imitation of the ancient soothsaying strains, but it is coldly elaborate, and gives us an idea more of the smoke than the fire of vaticination. It is in fact, however, merely a picture, and not a relic of Greek poetical prophecy. Cassandra speaks only at second-hand through a messenger in the poem, and we never think for a moment of the author having pretended to prescience. He figures before us only as one imagining the past predictions of past things, and enditing them either in his closet, or in a nook of the Alexandrian Library. The short passages of oracular sayings and responses preserved to us by the Greek historians are, therefore, the only extant specimens of this class of their poetry. Those passages are exceedingly curious as historical documents; but they are few and brief, as we might expect them to be, and, as relics of poetry, are entirely insignificant. Nor is the slightest reliance to be placed on the pretended antiquity of the so called Sibylline verses. The eight books which are extant under that title, are palpable forgeries of the early Christians, or of subsequent compilers. The Sibyl muse, in those dull effusions, versifies portions of scriptural history, both from the Old and New Testament; describes the flood and the family of Noah with considerable minuteness; professes herself a Christian; inveighs against idolaters and Jews; preaches the crucifixion, and the coming of Antichrist; and intelligibly hints at the doctrine of the Trinity. It is painful to think of the advocates of a pure religion having ever resorted to means so unworthy of its purity, and so unnecessary for its support. But, unless those books were written by Christians, it remains to be answered from whom they came. The Pagans certainly forged Sibylline verses, but none of this description. To call them genuinely inspired would be to place them blasphemously on a par with the Bible. That Paganism should have forged works against idolatry, is about as probable as that a man should forge a bill with a view to enrich his bitterest enemy, and get himself hanged. There are some things from the Old Testament in those fabrications, and it has therefore been alleged that the Jews may have got them up. But as the New Testament happens to be also pilfered, it would have been as wise to have suspected the Turks. Elegiac and Lyric Poetry. Poetry was much more universally and directly an enjoyment of the ear among the Greeks than it is with us. From the abundance of books, we can possess the poet's page in our retirement, and are therefore accustomed to follow his numbers with only a tacit and mental conception of their harmony. But the Greeks, even in the more cultivated state of their literature, seldom read poetry to themselves. They heard it publicly delivered either in song or recitation. In primitive times there seems to have been no recitation of poetry that was not musical to a certain degree, how rude soever the chaunt might be, and however short it might fall of perfect melody. The earliest appellation of the Greek bard was that of a singer (odos), and he is always described by Homer as repeating his verses to the lyre. In a later state of the language, he is denominated a poet or maker (s), and the term Ode, or sung poem, is applied not generically to poetry, but distinctively to strains of a particular structure and character. This shows that, as music improved, and as poetry spread into various branches, some kinds of composition were found more expressly susceptible than others of musical accompaniment. Greek poetry, no doubt, possessed, upon the whole, an eminent aptitude for musical expression; but all its branches were not equally allied to music.-Aristotle, for instance, discriminates Epic poetry from Tragic by this circumstance (among others), of music not being essential to the Epos as it was to Tragedy. And from this distinction it may surely be inferred, that, though the rhapsodists may have long retained their lyre and chaunt as ancient usages of their profession, an Epic poem in the time of Aristotle would not have been regarded as robbed of its due honours in delivery, if it had been simply read to an audience. When Cicero tells us of Antimachus, the last but one of the classic Epics, rehearsing his poetry to Plato and other less patient auditors, he expressly describes him in the anecdote as reading his verses (legentem suos versus); and nobody, I suppose, suspects the poet, on this occasion, to have had a lute in his hand. In the latter classic ages of Greece, it was customary for poets to read their compositions aloud in public. They rehearsed them from an elevated seat to hearers placed on surrounding benches, who sometimes criticised the poet severely, but at other times were so warm in their admiration as to accompany him home with plaudits to his abode. The Greek word for elocution (as) has sometimes, though rarely, a meaning apparently corresponding with our term recitative, but on those occasions the elocution was unquestionably mere declamation. When we thus find Homer singing, or at least inviting his muse to sing, and Antimachus, at the close of the classic period, only reading his verses, it might appear from a hasty view of the subject, that Greek poetry was at first exceedingly musical, and that it grew less and less so as it descended downwards from Homer. It is certain, however, that this was not the fact, and that the age in which poetry and music were most intimately blended was considerably later than the Homeric. Yet, Homer and the Homeridæ, it will be said, were singers by their own declaration, as well as players upon the lyre; and why should they not be called Lyrical poets by as good a right as that subsequent dynasty to whom the appellation is assigned by distinction ? As poets, it will readily occur that the Greek Lyrics marked out a new era, by the novelty and variety of their metres, as well as by the matter and spirit of their compositions. But as composers blending music with poetry, how were they distinguished from their predecessors? To answer this question with perfect precision, would be, in other words, to state the exact difference in the state of music during the heroic and republican ages of Greece-a task which certainly has never been fulfilled by the most competent inquirers. It is certain, however, that there was a difference, which, perhaps may be thus estimated in very general terms. The lyre was an exceedingly rude instrument in epic times. The majority of the ancients agree that, until the time of Terpander, it had not more than three or four strings. Music, both vocal and instrumental, was, till this time, traditionary, unfixed, and wholly dependant on memory. Terpander first gave notation, or written marks, to melody.t Professor Ilgen, in an elaborate disquisition on this subject, has collated several ancient authorities, tending to show that Terpander was the first who substituted distinct air or song in public recitations of Greek poetry for simple chaunt or recitative, and the occasional touches of the lyre for a full and tuneful performance which made the instrument follow all the inflections of the voice in modulation. It is clear, to be sure, that even in the remotest times The Greek word λuga, from which our term lyre is derived, is not found in Homer; but the instruments which he calls óguy and xibaga, were certainly as nearly as possible the same with the lyre, only in a ruder state. Among several passages in Plutarch's Dialogue on Music, in which Terpander is mentioned, the following is the one which points most decidedly at his character as an improver of the art:— καὶ γὰρ του Τέρπανδρον ἔφη (ὁ Ηρακλίδης) κιθαρω δίκων ποιητην όντα νόμων, κατὰ νόμον ἕκαστον τοις ἔπεσι τοις ἑαυτοῦ και τοις Ομήρου μέλη περιτιθέντα, ἄδειν ἐν τοις ἀγῶσιν. Mons. Burrette, who gives a translation of Plutarch's Dialogue on Music in the 10th vol. of the Memoirs of the French Academy of Inscriptions, makes the following commentary on this passage. Translators, he says, have generally misunderstood it. "Ils ont pris le terme Nous pour des loix ou des règles de composition musicale, et ont traduit sur ce pied la, faute d'être instruits de la véritable signification de ce mot; et en cet endroit et dans tout ce dialogue, où Nous n'est autre chose qu'un air ou un cantique. Voici donc ce que veut dire Plutarch: Terpandre composoit d'abord des poëmes lyriques d'une certaine mésure propres à être accompagnées de la cithare. Ensuite il mettoit ces poësies en musique, de façon que celle-ci put s'accommoder au jeu de la cithare, qui alors ne rendoit précisament que les mêmes sons chantés par la voix du musicien.' Enfin, Terpandre notoit cette musique sur les vers mêmes des cantiques de sa composition, et quelquefois il en faisoit autant pour les poësies d'Homère, après quoi il étoit en état de les exécuter lui-même, ou de les faire exécuter dans les jeux publiques." Ilgen, Disq. de Scol. Poesi. the Greeks had melodies, or airs, which strongly affected themselves. But it is equally clear that their vocal melody must have been very imperfect, and their instrumental still more so. The age of Terpander, at least, possessed no traditional melodies that were thought worthy of the Homeric verses, for he is said to have first clothed them in melody. Music was therefore obviously incapable, in that ancient period, of lending poetry that peculiar character which music, when established in definite beauty as an art, impresses on poetical composition. But when melody became noted and regulated, when the strings and compass of the lyre were increased, then the union between music and verse rose to reciprocal influence. Every syllable of the poet's numbers had its expression definitely adapted to the melody of the voice and string, and fixed beyond the reach of caprice. The consequence of poets addicting themselves to the composition of verse that should be best adapted for this intimate coalition with music was, that they studied more than their predecessors to give the pith of language, without its superfluities-to support emotion more continuously-to strike the fancy with quicker images-to diversify rhythm, and at the same time to heighten its emphasis. These still continue to be the main characteristics of Lyric Poetry. That the rude music of Greece had previously possessed no influence on its poetry, is certainly not to be imagined; but it was a comparatively feeble influence. If (as the best judges interpret) what Plutarch says of Terpander clearly implies his having been the inventor of musical notation, the rescuing of the art from dependence on vague caprice and memory, was something like giving it a new creation. On the Homeric state of instrumental music, Dr. Burney pronounces a very sweeping judgment.-" Singing, he says, there is in Homer, without instrumental music; but of instrumental music without vocal, there is not a trace to be found in the writings of Homer. Even the dance is never described as performed to the lyre alone, without the accompaniment of the voice." Either some passage of Homer on this subject has escaped me, or Dr. Burney's assertion is too unqualified. In the 18th book of the Iliad, there is positively dancing to pipes and lyres, without a word about song; and the passage which Dr. B. quotes to prove that dance was struck up to the voice, is a mistranslation of Pope's. Still I am inclined to believe the fact, that instrumental was never separated from vocal music in the Homeric times, and that the ballet itself was inspired by the singer's voice; for though there are no precise and equivocal proofs, there are symptoms of this in Homer. The musician who inspires the dance, is always called a singer, and song and dancing are forever closely mentioned together. Many traits in Greek manners tend to confirm the supposition. Terpander is said to have invented the Scolia, or convivial songs, of the Greeks, and is believed by Plutarch to have been older than even Archilochus, the commonly reputed father of Lyric Poetry. As an inventor of songs, Terpander appears in the genuine light of a Lyric Κουροι για ορχηστήρες εδίνεον, εν δ ̓ αρα τοισιν Iliad. 18. 494. † Και τοις χρόνοις δε σφόδρα παλαιος εστι (ο Τέρπανδρος). πρεσβύτερον γουν αυτον ̓Αρχιλοχου αποφαίνει Γλαυκος ὁ εξ Ιταλίας, εν συγγραμματι τινι τω περί των αρχαίων ποιητών και μουσικών. Plutarch. Dial. de Musica. poet, which is more than can be said of him when regarded only as a musician, setting melody to the strains of Homer.-That he melodized entire rhapsodies of Homer, is much less probable than that he only selected impassioned and striking passages, and prefixed to them those lyrical proems or preludes which he is recorded to have composed. But the new impulse which poetry received from the improvement of music as an art, was not to be limited by the mere composition of melody for Homeric verse. The same progress of social life which improved music, also awoke new emulation in poetry, and pointed out to her a charm and resource of novelty, in substituting the concentrated eloquence of passion for the diffuse simplicity of the Epic style. The improvers of music, who wished to unite it with poetry, would soon find, that enthusiasm is the bond of union between the two arts, and that language is susceptible of musical expression, in proportion as it is the language of sustained emotion. The Muse of the Lyric age, therefore, quitted protracted legends and descriptions for the pure utterance of passions that came home to men's bosoms and business. Epic poetry has too large a compass to fulfil to be forever impetuous and fervid in its course. It excites and gratifies a deliberate and circumstantial curiosity, and though it lifts up the passions at times, it relieves them with agreeable intervals of repose. But, continuous and supported excitement of feeling, whether grave or gay, is the characteristic of Lyric verse; and, accordingly, Poetry of this elastic nature sprang up abundantly in Greece in the age that thrilled with the first spell of complete melody. Poetry and music, at this epoch, mutually aided the progress of each other.-Music excited poetic enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm of the poet sought to vent itself in variety of versification. This variety of metre reacted upon music, and enriched it. In the modern state of the art, it is true that music is, to a great degree, independent of the measure which it accompanies. But rhythm, as Burney (and Tartini before him) remarked, rigorously governed melody in the music of ancient Greece; so that new metres must have generated new airs. When we are told, therefore, that Archilochus first showed the example of accompanying transitions from one rhythm to another with the music of the lyre, we may regard him, even if his date was later than Terpander's, as eminently sharing in the honour of lyrical invention. The cultivation of Elegiac poetry commenced early in the Lyric period of Greece. Indeed, if it were not easier to offer conjectures than to settle dates, I should surmise that the earliest elegies probably preceded the earliest Greek lyrical poems. This idea, it is true, presupposes Callinus to have been earlier than either Terpander or Archilochus, and the date of all those three poets is still a debateable point in chronology. But in formerly mentioning Callinus, I had occasion to notice some grounds for supposing that he lived as early as the first Olympiads, and this would make him anterior to any of the dates assigned to Terpander, either by Athenæus or Eusebius, or the Oxford Marbles. If Callinus was so early a writer, the fragment of his War elegy must be held to exhibit a specimen of Greek poetry in its intermediate state between the Homeride and the Lyric poets. In these pentameters we see the first deviation that was made from the old Homeric metre-a change, it is true, not productive of livelier harmony, but still suggesting a hint for farther experiments in versifica |