im the honor. The Greeks had arrived at
a high degree of civilization before they can be said to have
possessed a history of their own. Nations far behind them in
intellectual development have infinitely excelled them in this
respect. The imagination seems to have been entirely dazzled and
fascinated with the glories of the heroic ages, and to have taken but
little interest in the events which were daily passing around them.
Poetry constitutes the chief part of early Greek literature. We give
specimens of both Greek poetry and prose. We will not attempt to give
specimens of all, but only such as are considered, by common consent,
the best.

HOMER.

Seven cities have contested for the honor of the birth-place of Homer.
It is now generally agreed that he was born about 950 B.C., in the
City of Melesigenes.

It is not a little strange that nothing should be known with certainty
of the parentage or of the birth-place, or even of the era of the
greatest poet of antiquity, of him who, next to Milton, ranks as the
greatest epic poet of the world. In two respects, all the accounts
concerning him agree--that he had traveled much, and that he was
afflicted with blindness. From the first circumstance, it has been
inferred that he was either rich or enjoyed the patronage of the
wealthy; but this will not appear necessary when it is considered
that, in his time, journeys were usually performed on foot, and that
he probably traveled, with a view to his support, as an itinerant
musician or reciter. From most of the traditions respecting him, it
appears that he was poor, and it is to be feared that necessity,
rather than the mere desire of gratifying curiosity, prompted his
wanderings. All that has been advanced respecting the occasion of his
blindness is mere conjecture. Certain it is, that this misfortune
arose from accident or disease, and not from the operation of nature
at his birth; for the character of his compositions seems rather to
suppose him all eye, than destitute of sight; and if they were even
framed during his blindness, they form a glorious proof of the vivid
power of the imagination more than supplying the want of the bodily
organs, and not merely throwing a variety of its own tints over the
objects of nature, but presenting them to the mind in a clearer light
than could be shed over them by one whose powers of immediate vision
were perfectly free from blemish.

Of the incidents in the life of Homer, almost as