trifling in themselves, are by the master-hand of the poet rendered susceptible of so many beauties, that they deserved to be sung by the Graces to the harp of Apollo.
His language, free and unrestrained, flows on in an uninterrupted strain of melody, like the streamlet so beautifully described in the twenty-second ode as ῥεουσα πειθους, rolling persuasion; and the reader is at once charmed with the sweet music of his song, and the beauty and simplicity of his descriptions.
As to their moral tendency, a reflection which now necessarily presents itself, it certainly is my decided opinion, that in this poet far less will be found to offend the reader of taste and delicacy than in almost any other ancient author who has written on the same subjects. His language is everywhere pure and elegant; and his sentiments, however much at variance with our own altered ideas and circumstances, are such as might naturally be expected from one who, ignorant of higher and better hopes, mistook the road to happiness through the flowery paths of pleasure.
In short, while we condemn, and with justice, those licentious thoughts and expressions which occur but too frequently in almost every author of antiquity, and which, in a greater or less degree, debase and disfigure their brightest pages, we
