Lycurgus into the Peloponnesus; and from the same. school other epic poets also started up, whose works have been swallowed by the stream of time. A happy accident has preserved for us the general contents of a few of them; but though these accounts are meagre, we may still infer from them, that even among the ancients, they are chiefly of interest to the professed student of literature, and that they never gained any claim to be called national poems. But the works of these, and so many others, of whom we know only the names, show how generally epic poetry was extended among the nation. After the epic language had once been perfected by Homer, it remained peculiar to this kind of poetry; and when we read the works of much later poets, of Quintus, or of Nonnus, we might believe ourselves employed on authors many centuries older than they, had we not other evidence beside their language to fix the period in which they lived. That the dialect of Homer remained the principal one for this class of poetry, had an important influence on Grecian literature. Amidst all the changes and improvements in language, it prevented the ancient from becoming antiquated, and secured it a place among the later modes of expression. This was a gain for the language and for the nation. With the dialect of Homer, his spirit continued in some measure to live among the epic poets. Language cannot of itself make a poet; but yet how much depends on language. If in those later poets we occasionally hear echoes of Homer, is it not sometimes his spirit which addresses us?

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But his influence on the spirit of his countrymen was much more important than his influence on their language. He had delineated the world of heroes in colors which can never fade. He had made it present to posterity and thus the artist and the tragic poet found a sphere opened for the employment of their powers of representation. And the scenes from which they drew their subjects, could not have remained foreign to their countrymen. We do but touch on this subject, in order to say something on the point which lies particularly within the circle of our inquiries; the influence which Homer and the epic poets exercised on the political character of their countrymen.

When we compare the scanty fragments that are still extant, respecting the circulation and preservation of the poems of Homer, it is remarkable that in Hellas itself, the lawgivers and rulers were the most active in making them known and in saving them from perishing. Lycurgus, we are told, was the first who introduced them into the Peloponnesus by means of the rhapsodists; Solon esteemed the subject so important, that in his code of laws, he formed distinct regulations, in conformity to which it seems probable that the several rhapsodies were recited, not as before without method, but in their natural order, by several rhapsodists, who relieved each other at intervals. All this prepared for the undertaking of Pisistratus; who, according to the accounts of the ancients, not only arranged the poems of Homer, but gained a claim to the eternal gratitude of posterity, by committing them to writing.

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This care in those illustrious men did not result from a mere admiration of poetry. That it was connected with their political views, if it needs such confirmation, appears from the circumstance that Solon introduces it into his laws. Were we to form judgment on this subject from the narrow views of our own times, it would seem strange, that they who founded or confirmed the government of a number, even a democracy, should have labored to extend the productions of a bard who was opposed to their principles, and declares his political creed without disguise; no good comes of the government of the many; let one be ruler, and one be king;" and in whose works, as we have already remarked, republicanism finds no support. But their views were not so limited. Their object was not to confirm, by means of the poet, their own institutions and their own laws. They desired to animate their nation with a love for excellence and sublimity. Poetry and song, indissolubly united, seemed to them the fittest means of gaining that end. These had the greatest influence on the intellectual culture of the people. And if that culture lay within the sphere of the Grecian lawgivers (and it always did, though in different degrees), of what importance in their eyes must that poet have been, whose poems, above all others, were recited by the class of rhapsodists, that lent a glory to the national

festivals and assemblies? Solon, himself one of the first of moral poets, could not but perceive how much experience and knowledge of the world are contained in those books, with which youth is begun, and to which age returns. No fear was entertained, lest the narrations respecting the gods should be injurious to morals; although that fear afterward induced Plato to banish them from his republic; the philosopher who but for Homer never could have become Plato. For, as we have already remarked, the gods were not held up as models for imitation. But whilst the people was enriching itself with that infinite treasure of practical wisdom, it continued at the same time to live in a world of heroes, and to preserve a taste for objects of beauty. It is impossible to estimate the consequences which resulted from this, the gain of the nation as a nation, by the encouragement of its warlike spirit, by the preservation of its love of liberty and independence. In one respect, those lawgivers were unquestionably in the right; a nation, of which the culture rested on the Iliad and Odyssey, could not easily be reduced to a nation of slaves.-Ideas on the Politics, Intercourse and Trade, etc. Translation of GEORGE BANCROFT.

HEERMANN, JOHANNES, a German poet and divine, born at Raudten, near Wohlau, Silesia, October 11, 1585; died at Lissa, province of Posen, February 17, 1647. He was the fifth and only surviving child of a furrier of Raudten; and during a severe illness in his childhood his mother vowed that he recovered she would educate him for the ministry, even though she had to beg the necessary money. He passed through the schools at Wohlau; at Fraustadt; the St. Elizabeth gymna sium at Breslau; and the gymnasium at Brieg. In 1609 he accompanied two young noblemen, to whom he had been tutor at Brieg, to the University of Strassburg; but an affection of the eyes caused him to return home in 1610. The following year he was appointed diaconus of Köben, and was promoted the same year to the pastorate there. In 1634, in consequence of a painful affection of the throat, he ceased preaching, and in 1638 he retired to Lissa, where he remained until his death. Much of his manhood was spent amid the distressing scenes of the Thirty Years' War. Köben was plundered four times between 1629 and 1634, and was devastated by fire in 1616 and by pestilence in 1631. He lost all his movable. property several times; was nearly sabred twice; was a fugitive on one occasion for seventeen weeks; and while crossing the Oder in a frail

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and overloaded boat he heard the bullets of his pursuers whistle over his head. Amid these trials, and borne down with sickness and domestic troubles, he wrote his finest hymns. His principal work is his Devoti Musica Cordis (1644), better known by its German title as Haus und Hertz Musica (House and Heart Music). Other works are: Exegesis Fidei Christiana (1609); Gebetbuch (1609); a volume of religious poems entitled Andachtige Kirchenseufzer oder Reimen (1616); Heptalogus Christi (1619); Leichenpredigten (1620), being five volumes of funeral orations; Epigrammatum Libri IX. (1624); Erklärung aller Sonn und Festtagsepisteln (1624), being an explication of all the Sunday and feast-day epistles; Poetische Erquickstunden für Angefochtene Kranke und Sterbende (1656), a book of poems for the sick and the dying.

"As a hymn-writer," says Julian, in his great work on hymnology, "Heermann ranks with the best of his century, some indeed regarding him as second only to Gerhardt. His hymns are distinguished by depth and tenderness of feeling; by firm faith and confidence in face of trial; by deep love to Christ, and humble submission to the will of God. Many of them became at once popular, passed into the hymn-books, and still hold their place among the classics of German hymnody."

"His hymns and other lyrical poems," says Gostwick and Harrison in their Outlines of German Literature, "express the religious discontent -the contrast between this life and a higher— that supplies the key-note for a great part of the sacred poetry written during the Thirty Years' War."