The Litchfield County post., 1827-09-20


difficulty expelled from the gates. Into these
they drove numbers Of fugitives, whom the
Atheuians sheltered from immediate death
and restitution, but for whom they were ul-
timately obliged TO provide, by sending them
abroad, together with their own supernumer-
airy population. Entire unfortunate tribes
we're thus obliged to seek for new habitatiOns
at the point of the sword. The devastatiOns
of the Heracleid conquerOrs long retarded
exelIenic civilization.
But the tyranny of barbarians in proper
Greece, by the very expulsion Of part Of her
more civilized people, eventually extended her
name and literature. The desperate adven-
turers repaired to Asia Minor, where they
founded a second Greece. Three great mi
gratiOns to Asia took place successfully after
the descent of the Heraclelds THE Dorian,
the Eolian, and the Ionian. By these re-
giOn four hundred miles in length, along the
coast and islands of Asia, the finest for soil
and climate under Heaven, were fOrcibly sci
zed, and eighteen new states rapidly founded.
Those states formed. at one period, an uni
versal or triole confederation; but the union
was happily slight, either among the three
great divisions, or even the sundry common
wealths that composed them ; and the whole
ultimately yielded to the persevering power
of Persia and Lydia. But for long time
they cherished freedom and commerce, and
were pre-eminent in art and song. Ionia
taught the science to Athens herself.
There had been, certainly, refuxes of pop
ulation from proper Greece into Asia long an
terror to this period; and Homer might have
sprung up in some Greek settlement left be-
hind the conquerors Of Troy. But this new
colonization has swallowed up the memory of
all others, and its effects form one of greatest
of inhuman culture. Whatever knowledge
proper Greece now sent forth with her more
polished Ionians and EOlians, was favored in
its advancement by the vicinity of the new
! corners to Asiatic nations that were by no
means uncivilized. Lydan and Phrygian
melodies here met the ear of the Greek. The
art of music was here advanced. New striags
| were added to the Tyre and varieties of form
and power to the pipe and flute Terpander in
vented musical notation, & verse was thus re-u-
nited to poetry, as by new wedlock. Before
the art of notation was known, it is obvious
how imperfect the musical accompaniment of
poetry must have been, whilst it was dependent
on mere memory and caprice. 1t consisted,
most probably where long poems were reci-
ted, chiefly in chaunt or recitdtive, irregular
ly joined to touches on the rude stringed in
strument. But when music passed from ira
dition to writing, it blended intimately and dis
tinctly with poetry, every syllable of which
had its appropriate and inabienable magic
sound. New tunes thus gave new impulse
to the invention of new poetcal metres and,
on the other hand, the poet, anticipating that
his works were to be wholly and distinctly
| sung, studied the language most peculiarly fit
| ted for musical expression, namely, that of
| condensed passion, instead of diIated narrative.
Thus poetry changed from Epic to Lyric
character.
This change in poetry was cotemporaneous
with the political changes which, soon after
| the Homeric times, substituted republics for
monarchies in most of the states, both. of
Greece and her colonies. Blythe republican
ism of that period we are not to understand
pure democracy, but government founded on
the general principle Of popular opinion, and in
opposition to that Of the hereditary right of
kings. The influence on the character of po-
etry, that has been attributed to those new po-
litical institutions, is not, perhaps, wholly i'm
aginary. Human passions were more strongly
developed by popular governments than they
had been by monarchy; the fercest spirits
took the foremost lead in society; and poetry
was an incomparabIy more powerful organ Of
popular influence in those times than in the
present. Hence the poet more than ever be-
came public alligator, and, whether patriot
or demagogue, gave vent to more zeal than
he could have hazarded in Homeric times
Hence the wrath of Archilocus, and the ener-
gy of Alceus. But political causes will by no
means account for all the variety of character
10 the great primitive Lyric school of Greece
anterior to Pindar-the rich spirit Of which,
though known but by tradition and scanty
fragment, appears to have extended to the
whole range of human transports, from the
bitterest hatred to the lightest gaety, and in
the glow Of Sappho and the revelry of Ana
creon, we recognize more of the voluptuOus-
ness of Asia than the genius of republicanism.
The GrRcO- Asiatics, were not, however, the
sole cutivators of poetry during the Lyric a
ges between Archilocus and Pindar. Proper
Greece he'd her Alcman and her Tyrtaus; and
even Sicily, whither,as well as to Italy, Greek
colonization had already extended, and where
third Greece had arisen, Stesichorus sang
the destruction of Troy in hymns of half Fps
&c character. -,
In the age of the Persian invasion, poetic
genius already dropped in Asia Minor, but it
burst forth again with supreme inspiration in
proper Greece, and the Muses. once more
haunted the streams and fountains which they
had earliest halowed. The Theban Pindar
raised Lyric poetry to what the universal O.
Pinion has deemed its highest perfection. To
the Greeks it is easy to conceive that he was
perfect in his kind and his hirh mitch of