in accordance with what might be termed poetical justice than with the sober strain of history, were it not a fact asserted by writers of credit and reputation. He was choked with a grape-stone as he was regaling on some new wine, and expired in the eighty-fifth year of his age.
As to the personal character of this author, he appears to have been a professed despiser of business and the cares of the world, and indeed a lover of pleasure in every shape; though it seems neither just nor generous to form our judgment of him solely from the nature of his writings. The severe and moral Plato condescends to call him the "wise Anacreon;" a title which it is not likely he would have bestowed on him had he possessed no other claim to it than the harmony of his verse or the gayety of his disposition. Independent likewise of this expression of Plato, which must certainly be regarded as no mean evidence in his favour, the grammarian Athenæus distinctly mentions him, as νηφων και αγαθος, sober and honourable.
It now remains to speak of his writings, which were long the delight of other days, and are still read and admired by every scholar of taste and learning in our own. His Odes, the only part of his works which have reached us entire, are written in the Ionic dialect, remarkable for its softness and sweetness. The subjects, though often simple and
