Affert, if incenfe on their altar lay, The wonderous tale which I fhall ne'er believe Francis. This perfectly agrees with the ingenuous confeffion he makes his friend Tibullus, in his letter to that very agreable poet, Me pinguem & nitidum bene curata cute vises And here in fleek and joyous cafe Francis. We have no fatisfactory accounts of the education of PINDAR; it is faid indeed, that his father Scopelinus taught him the flute, intending it as a profeffion for him; but finding his genius adapted to undertakings of a far fuperior nature, he placed him with Lafus a lyric poet, whom he foon excelled: Suidas fays he was the difciple of Myrtis, μαθητής δε Μυρτίδος γυναικός - others again affert that he ftudied a long time with the celebrared Corinna, who upon account of her most furprizing abilities was called the Divine, and the tenth Mufe. We may however very reasonably fuppofe, that, confidering the obfcurity of his birth, and the narrowness of his finances, he could have received but very little advantages from education -he was more indebted to nature, and to his genius; of this he was himself fenfible, and he very gratefully at the fame time acknowleges his infi pitę nite obligation to Providence who had fo liberally provided for him: he knew what a great difference there was between him and his rival poets; he was the favourite child of nature, they were the drudges of arthe compares them to base crows, bimfelf to the tow'ring eagle, Yet in my well-ftor'd breaft remain With copious argument my moral strain, The praise of wisdom may contest- The education of HORACE was quite different: let us attend to what he fays himself about it Atqui fi vitiis mediocribus, ac mea paucis Caufa fuit pater his, qui macro pauper agelio Sed puerum eft aufus Romam portare, docendum Artes quas doceat quivis eques atque Senator Semet progenitos Ipfe mihi cuftos incorruptiffimus amores Circum Circum doctores aderat ob hoc nunc quid multa ? Laus illi debetur, & à me gratia major- A certis annis ævum remeare peractum, rentes Optaret fibi quifque, meis contentus If fome few trivial faults deform my foul- The country school-mafter, to whofe low care -Himself my guardian, of unblemished truth That we from any stated point might live Francis. We may upon the whole very reasonably conclude that PINDAR and HORACE, the manners and morals of the age they lived in confidered, were both of them men of honeft principles; tho' in many particulars we may trace an intermixture of good and bad qualities in them-they were both both of an amorous complexion, and highly jealous of their fame; their felf fufficiency was a vanity by no means mifbecoming, nay was very allowable to Poets of their diftinguished Characters. --They were admired by the best and the politeft judges of good writing; and yet fometimes met with ill treatment from the ignorant and the illiterate, who envied them their deferved and well-merited honours.. We cannot be fo thoroughly acquainted with PINDAR in his private life, as to give any circumftantial account of his perfonal difpofitions; we can only form our judgment of them by the high reputation in which he was held when living, and from the noble fentiments we meet with in the different parts of his writings, in which he paints Virtue in the moft amiable colours, and Vice in her most detefted deformity; he every where breaths fuch a spirit of honour and morality, that it is impoffible but that he must have had fentiments infpiring virtue and generofity, and a foul happily conftituted for the utmost exertion of every thing that was good, juft, and honourable. Some of his compofitions are fo moral, fo full of religious fentiment, fo exalted, that many are, of opinion that he drew them from the fountain head, or rather, that he borrowed them from the boly Scriptures-this is the judgment of Clemens Alexandrinus, who in his third book and tenth chapter of his Pedagogue, fays that PINDAR in the following paffage, γλυκύ τι κλεπτομενον κυπρίδος The ftolen joys of love how fweet! had an eye to the following fentence in the proverbs," for fhe fitteth at the door of her house, "on a feat in the high places of the city; to call "paffengers who go right on their ways; whofo is "fimple "fimple, let him turn in hither, and as for him. "that wanteth understanding, fhe faith to him, "Stolen maters are sweet, and bread eaten in fecret is pleasant". εντευθεν ωφελημένος ο βοιωτιος Πινδαρος, &c. It is very extraordinary that this fame writer fhould pass over another fentiment of PINDAR, which he evidently had taken from the books of Solomon. επαμέροι, τι δε τις ; τι δ' τις σκιας οναρ ανθρωπος the antiftrophe which he fo frequently uses, is the only part which differs from that wife and Royal Author's expreffion, calling it the dream of a fhadow, inftead of the shadow of a dream: Sophocles has very happily imitated this in his Ajax, where. Ulyffes fays, Όρω γαρ ημας «δεν οντας άλλο πλην -Frail mortals are no more Than a vain image, and an empty fhade. Franklin. How emphatically does PINDAR recommend Juftice? which he calls the very bulwark of a commonwealth, |