No. LXVII.

Mufa dedit fidibus Divos, puerofque Deorum, Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primum, Et juvenum curas, et libera vina referre.

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(HORAT.)

times of very remote antiquity, when men were not fo lavifh of their wit as they have fince been, Poetry could not furnish employment for more than Three Mufes; but as bufinefs grew upon their hands and departments multiplied, it became neceffary to enlarge the commiffion, and a board was constituted confifting of Nine in number, who had their several prefidencies al lotted to them, and every branch of the art poetic thenceforth had its peculiar patronefs and fuperintendant.

As to the specific time when thefe three fenior goddeffes called in their fix new affeffors it is matter of conjecture only; but if the poet Hefiod was, as we are told, the first who had the honour of announcing their names and characters to the world, we may reasonably fuppofe this was done

upon the immediate opening of their new commiffion, as they would hardly enter upon their offices without apprifing all those, whom it might concern, of their acceffion.

Before this period the three eldest sisters condefcended to be maids of all work; and if the work became more than they could turn their hands to, they have nobody but themfelves and their fellow deities to complain of; for had they been content to have let the world go on in its natural courfe, mere mortal poets would not probably have overburthened either it or them; but when Apollo himself (who being their prefident fhould have had more confideration for their eafe) begot the poet Linus in one of his terreftrial frolics, and endowed him with hereditary genius, he took a certain method to make work for the mufes: Accordingly we find the chafte Calliope herself, the eldest of the fifterhood, and who fhould have fet a better example to the family, could not hold out against this heavenly baftard, but in an unguarded moment yielded her virgin honours to Linus, and produced the poet Orpheus: Such an instance of celeftial incontinence could not fail to shake the morals of the

the most demure; and even the cold goddefs Luna caught the flame, and finuggled a bantling into the world, whom malicioufly enough the named Mufaus, with a fly defign no doubt of laying her child at the door of the Parnaffian nunnery.

Three fuch high-blooded bards as Linus, Orpheus and Mufæus, fo fathered and for mothered, were enough to people all Greece with poets and musicians; and in truth they were not idle in their generation, but like true patriarchs fpread their families over all the fhores of Ionia and the islands of the Archipelago: It is not therefore to be wondered at, if the three fifter mufes, who had enough to do to nurfe their own children and defcendants, were difpofed to call in other helpmates to the tafk, and whilst Greece was in its glory, it may well be fup posed that all the nine fifters were fully employed in bestowing upon every votary a portion of their attention, and anfwering every call made upon them for aid and infpiration: Much gratitude is due to them, from their favoured poets, and much hath been paid, for even to the prefent hour they are invoked and worshipped by the fons of verfe,

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verfe, whilst all the other deities of Olympus have either abdicated their thrones, or been difmiffed from them with contempt; even Milton himself in his facred epic invokes the heavenly mufe, who infpired Mofes on the top of Horeb or of Sinai; by which he afcribes great antiquity as well as dignity to the character he addreffes.

The powers afcribed to Orpheus were under the veil of fable emblems of his influence over favage minds, and of his wisdom and éloquence in reclaiming them from that barbarous ftate: Upon. thefe impreffions civilization and fociety took place: The patriarch, who founded a family or tribe, the legiflator, who eftablished a ftate, the priest, prophet, judge or king, are characters, which, if traced to their first sources, will be found to branch from that of poet: The firft prayers, the firft laws, and the earliest prophecies were metrical; profe hath a later origin, and before the art of writing was in existence, poetry had reached a very high degree of excellence, and fome of it's nobleft. productions were no otherwise preserved than by tradition. As to the facred quality of their first poetry the Greeks are agreed,

and

and to give their early bards the better title to infpiration, they feign them to be defcended from the Gods; Orpheus muft have profited by his mother's partiality, and Linus may well be fuppofed to have had fome intereft with his father Apollo. But to dwell no longer on these fabulous legends of the Greeks, we may refer to the books of Mofes for the earliest and inoft authentic examples. of facred poetry: Every thing that was the immediate effufion of the prophetic fpirit feems to have been chaunted forth in dithyrambic measure; the valedictory bleffings. of the Patriarchs, when dying, the fongs of triumph and thanksgiving after victory are metrical, and high as the antiquity of the facred poem of Job undoubtedly is, fuch nevertheless is its character and conftruction, as to carry strong internal marks of its being written in an advanced state of the

art.

The poet therefore, whether Hebrew or Greek, was in the earliest ages a facred character, and his talent a divine gift, a celestial infpiration: Men regarded him as the ambaffador of Heaven and the interpreter of it's will. It is perfectly in nature, and no E 6

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