PREFACE. THE merit to which the poems in the Greek Anthology have a claim, consists generally in the justness of a single thought conveyed in harmonious language. Very little can be done in the space of a few couplets, and it only remains for the writer to do that little with grace. The eye is fatigued with being raised too long to gaze on rocks and precipices, and delights to repose itself on the refreshing verdure and gentle slopes of scenery less bold and daring. In the same manner, the lover of poetry will sometimes find a grateful pause from grandeur and elevation, in the milder excellence of suavity and softness. The two great Epic Poets of antiquity have been instructed to sing in English numbers; and the smaller works which have been be b queathed to us, have had admirers and translators. Even Horace, the most versatile, who illustrates the greatest variety of subjects with expressions for ever new and varying, has fallen in with persons hardy enough to attempt meeting him in all the shapes which he assumes. The Greek Anthology opens a wide, and almost an untried field for further exertions; and although the present age may boast of no poets capable of piercing deep into the regions made sacred by ancient genius, yet we have those whose taste may enable them to gather a few flowers that grow by the way side, and preserve them to their country. of There is a certain turn of thought in many the English fugitive pieces, which may easily be traced to a Greek fountain. Such as that with which Ben Jonson concludes his Epitaph on Drayton. He thus addresses the " marble:" "And when thy ruins shall disclaim An everlasting monument to thee." pious The following distich, inscribed by Ion to the memory of Euripides, furnished the above : X Ου σον μνημα 10δ' ες', Ευριπίδη, αλλά συ τούδε, But our learned countryman commonly had recourse to the ancients for thoughts and images; and he has been detected, by Mr. Cumberland, "in poaching in an obscure collection of loveletters, written in a most rhapsodical style,” for all the ideas transmitted to us in the well-known song," *"Drink to me only with thine eyes." One of the few translated Epigrams (that of Simmias on the tomb of Sophocles) has been naturalized in our language by every charm of poetry and of music; and the Observer contains several others, which, although faithfully translated, are as easy and familiar as originals. It is necessary to mention the impropriety of combining in our minds with the word Epigram, when applied to the poetry of the Greeks, any of the ideas which that term is apt to excite in the mind of a mere English scholar, or one who is conversant only with those works * For this popular song, to which Jonson had so long stood father, he was indebted to a pretty, although conceited turn of thought, in the twenty-fourth letter of the sophist Philostratus ; εμοι δε μονοις προπινε τοις ομμασιν, &c. the version is literal. of Martial and Ausonius, among the ancient Epigrammatists. It is owing chiefly to this impropriety, that those beautiful remains of antiquity are so little known to the English reader, and that so few have been familiarized to him through the medium of translation. They relate to subjects that will be interesting and affecting as long as youth and gaiety delight, as wine and music and beauty captivate; or the contrary ideas of old age and death, sickness, banishment, neglected love, or forsaken friendship, can melt into sorrow, or chasten into melancholy. The term Epigram, which literally signifies an Inscription, was first appropriated to those short sentences which were inscribed on offerings made in temples. It was afterwards transferred to the inscription on the temple gate, thence to other edifices, and the statues of gods and heroes, and men whether living or dead; and the term remained whether the inscription was in verse or prose. Such was that very ancient one on the tomb of Cyrus: εγω Κυρος, ὁ την αρχην τοις Περσαις κλησάμενος και της Ασίης βασιλευς μη ουν φθονησης του μνήματος: The brevity of these inscriptions, which rendered it so easy to impress on the memory any particular |