her beauty and the splendour of her raiment. At the unearthly vision his love is kindled; but the poet, skilled in the mysteries of the heart, chastens his passion by overmastering feelings of reverence, such as necessarily belong to unsophisticated youth. Anchises constitutes, indeed, the beau idéal of an heroic shepherd, simple, high-minded, ingenuous, venturous and fearless in contests with man or beast, but in his intercourse with woman gentle, reverent, "And of his port as meek as is a maid.” In fact, the gallant knights of romance seem rather to have been modelled after the heroic warriors of Greece, than from any realities supplied by the chivalrous ages. The author of the Hymn is careful in describing the shepherd's couch, to insinuate with how great strength and courage he was endowed. He reclines, we are told, on skins of bears and lions slain by his own hand, though over these there were cast, for show, garments of the softest texture.1 Throughout this work it has been seen how the influence of climate and position concurred in the formation of the Greek character. We may ourselves put the doctrine to the proof by observing the effect upon our minds of those reflections of landscapes which appear in language; rude Boreal scenes exciting the spirit of contention and energy; while the soft valleys, groves, and odoriferous gardens of the South produce a calm upon our thoughts favourable to the more benevolent emotions. Hellenic shepherds, therefore, no other causes preventing, may upon the whole be supposed to have been humane. hair, frequently approached the shepherd with presents of game of her own catching. Having laid her gifts at his feet, she would kiss his locks and lick his face with her tongue, which, as VOL. II. the fountain was so near it, may be hoped was a work of supererogation. Alian. De Nat. Animal. viii. 11. 1 Hymn. ad Vener. 158, sqq. 2 E Indeed, the very curious adventures of a sophist,' The eastern shores of the island of Negropont, 1 Dion Chrysostom. Orat. vii. 2 On this mountain and the προσχεῖν, ὡς δή τινι εὐπροσόδῳ 3 On the purple fisheries of 4 A life equally simple is led the cliffs, powerful in limb, hale in colour, and with long hair streaming over his shoulders, appeared to be the natural descendant of those Heroic warriors.1 Armed with his hunting-knife, he flays and cuts up the stag upon the spot, and taking along with him the skin and choicest pieces of venison abandons the remainder on the beach. As they go along he displays the knowledge wherewith experience stores the rustic mind. He understands the signs of the weather, and from the clouds which cap the summits of Caphareus foretells how long the sea will continue unnavigable. Rude as an American backwoodsman, he was precipitated, by the rare luck of meeting with a stranger, into equal inquisitiveness and garrulity. He put questions without waiting for an answer. He gossipped of his own concerns; explained without being asked the whole economy of his life; and exhibited all that enthusiasm of beneficence which belongs to human nature when uncorrupted by the thirst of gold. There is a rare truth in the description; far too much ever to have graced a sophist's tale, unless nature had supplied the model. "There are two of us," says he, "who inhabit together the same rude nook, having married sisters, by whom we have both sons and daughters. We derive our subsistence principally from the chase, paying but little attention to agriculture, since we have no land of our own. Nor were our fathers better off in this respect than ourselves; for, though freeborn citizens, they were poor, and by their con "mountains, in the vale or the "plain, as the varying seasons "require, under arbours, or « sheds, covered with boughs, "tending their flocks abroad, or "milking the ewes and she-goats "at the fold, and making cheese "and butter to supply the city." Chandler, ii. p. 135. 1 Iliad. B. 541. d. 464. The long hair of these ancient warriors is thus mentioned by the Homeric Scholiast : τα οπίσω μέρη τῆς κεφαλῆς κομῶντες ἀνδρείας χάριν. ἴδιον δὲ τοῦτο τῆς τῶν Εὐβοέων κουρᾶς, τὸ ὄπισθεν τὰς τρίχας βαθείας ἔχειν. t. i. p. 83. Bekker. 2 Cf. Theoph. De Sign. Pluv. i. 22. dition constrained to tend the herds of another, a man of great property, owning vast droves of cattle, numerous horses and sheep, several beautiful estates, with many other possessions, and all these mountains as far as you can see. This opulence, however, became his ruin. For the emperor, casting a covetous eye upon his domains, put him to death, that he might have a pretext for seizing on them. Our few beasts went along with our master's, and the wages due to us there was no one to pay. "Here, therefore, of necessity we remained1 where two or three huts were left us, with a slight wooden shed in which the calves had been housed in the summer nights. For, during winter, we had been used to descend for pasture to the plains where, in the proper season, stores of hay were also laid up; but with the re-appearance of summer we returned again to the mountains. The spot which had formed our principal station now became our fixed dwelling. Branching off on either hand is a deep and shady valley, having in the middle a rivulet so shallow as to be easily traversed, both by cattle and their young. This stream, flowing from a spring hard by, is pure and perennial and cooled by the summer wind blowing perpetually up the ravine. The encircling forests of oak stretch forth their boughs far above, over a carpet of soft verdure, which descends with a gentle slope into the stream, giving birth to a few gad-flies,' or any other insect hurtful to herds. Extending around are numerous lovely meadows, dotted with lofty trees, where the grass is green and luxuriant throughout the year.' 2 The eloquence of this description, I mean in the original, is not unworthy to be compared with that in the Phædrus which has given eternal bloom to the platane-tree and agnus castus on the banks of the Ilissos. The conversion of these herdsmen into hunters is narrated by Dion with a patient simplicity worthy of Defoe. An air of solitude, snatched from Robinson Crusoe's island, seems to breathe at his bidding over Euboea. The same education operates strange changes both in man and dog; and bringing them into hostile contact with wolves, wild boars, stags, and other large animals, gives the latter a taste for blood, and renders him fierce and destructive. Subsisting by the chase, they pursued it summer and winter, following both hares and fallow-deer by their tracks in the snow. In their intervals of leisure 1 The absence of these tormentors of cattle was considered a matter of great importance by the ancients. Virgil, where he is giving directions respecting the best pastures suited to the youthful mothers of the herds, celebrates the exploits of the gadfly : Asper, acerba sonans: quo tota exterrita sylvis Diffugiunt armenta; furit mugiti- Concussus, sylvæque et sicci ripa Georg. iii. 143, sqq. See the note of Philargyrius in Saltibus in vacuis pascant, et ple- loc. Aristot. Hist. Animal, iv. 4. na secundum Flumina: muscus ubi, et viridis sima gramine ripa, Speluncæque tegant, et saxea procubet umbra. Est lucos Silari circa, ilicibusque virentem v. 19. 2 Plat. Opp. t. i. p. 9. To protect from pollution spots shaded by noble trees they were accustomed to consecrate them to some god, and to erect beneath the over Plurimus Alburnum volitans, cui hanging branches statues and al nomen asilo Romanum est, cstrum Graii ver tere vocantes: tars. Id.ib. In Crete the fountains are often shaded still by majestic plane-trees. Pashley, ii. 31. |