creations stand almost entirely detached from the previous
culture of other nations. At the same time it is possible to trace a
thread running back to remote antiquity, to show that their first hints
of a literature came from Asia. Their oldest traditions and poems have
many points of resemblance to the most ancient remains of the Asiatic
nations. Some writers say that "this amounts to nothing more than a few
scattered hints or mutilated recollections, and may all be referred to
the common origin of mankind, and the necessary influence of that
district of the world in which mental improvement of our species was
first considered as an object of general concern." But this proves at
least that there was an older civilization and literature than the
Greeks, and that that civilization had its root in the East. According
to their own testimony the Greeks derived their alphabet from the
Phoenicians, and the first principles of architecture, mathematical
science, detached ideas of philosophy, as well as many of the useful
arts of life, they learned from the Egyptians, or from the earliest
inhabitants of Asia.

The essential characteristic of the Greeks as a nation was the
development of their own idea, their departure from whatever original
tradition they may have had, and their far-reaching influence on all
subsequent literature throughout the world. They differed in this from
all other nations; for to quote again:

"the literature of India, with its great antiquity, its language, which
is full of expression, sweetness of tone, and regularity of structure,
and which rivals the most perfect of those western tongues to which it
bears such a resemblance, with all its richness of imagery and its
treasures of thought, has hitherto been void of any influence on the
development of general literature. China contributed still less, Persia
and Arabia were alike isolated until they were brought in contact with
the European mind through the Crusaders, and the Moorish Empire in
Spain."

This independence and originality of Greek literature is due in some
measure to the freedom of their institutions from caste; but another
and more powerful cause was that, unlike the Oriental nations, the
Greeks for a long time kept no correct record of their transactions in
war or peace. This absence of authentic history made their literature
become what it is. By the purely imaginary character of its poetry, and
the freedom it enjoyed from the trammel