of verse the aim of which is, less to excite
the hearer by passion or move him by pathos, than to instruct his mind
and improve his morals. The Greek word [Greek: didaktikos] signifies a
teacher, from the verb [Greek: didaskein], and poetry of the class under
discussion approaches us with the arts and graces of a schoolmaster. At
no time was it found convenient to combine lyrical verse with
instruction, and therefore from the beginning of literature the didactic
poets have chosen a form approaching the epical. Modern criticism, which
discourages the epic, and is increasingly anxious to limit the word
"poetry" to lyric, is inclined to exclude the term "didactic poetry"
from our nomenclature, as a phrase absurd in itself. It is indeed more
than probable that didactic verse is hopelessly obsolete. Definite
information is now to be found in a thousand shapes, directly and boldly
presented in clear and technical prose. No farmer, however elegant,
will, any longer choose to study agriculture in hexameters, or even in
Tusser's shambling metre. The sciences and the professions will not
waste their time on methods of instruction which must, from their very
nature, be artless, inexact and vague. But in the morning of the world,
those who taught with authority might well believe that verse was the
proper, nay, the only serious vehicle of their instruction. What they
knew was extremely limited, and in its nature it was simple and
straightforward; it had little technical subtlety; it constantly lapsed
into the fabulous and the conjectural. Not only could what early sages
knew, or guessed, about astronomy and medicine and geography be
conveniently put into rolling verse, but, in the absence of all written
books, this was the easiest way in which information could be made
attractive to the ear and be retained by the memory.

In the prehistoric dawn of Greek civilization there appear to have been
three classes of poetry, to which the literature of Europe looks back as
to its triple fountain-head. There were romantic epics, dealing with the
adventures of gods and heroes; these Homer represents. There were mystic
chants and religious odes, purely lyrical in character, of which the
best Orphic Hymns must have been the type. And lastly there was a great
body of verse occupied entirely with increasing the knowledge of
citizens in useful branches of art and observation; these were the
beginnings of didactic poetry, and we class them together