Midst mountain nymphs in brass th’ Ascræan stood,
Uttering the heaven-breathed song in his infuriate mood.
The collections of antiquities by Fulvius Ursinus, Gronovius, and Bellorius exhibit a gem, a busto and a basso-relievo, together with a truncated herma; which the ingenious artist who designed the frontispiece to this edition has united with one of the heads. The bust in the Pembroke collection differs from all these. In fact the sculptures, whether of Hesiod or Homer, are only interesting as antiquities of art; for the likenesses assigned to eminent poets by the Grecian artists were mostly imaginary:[7] and must evidently have been so in such ancient instances as these.
Greece, at an early period, seems to have possessed a spirit of just legislation, which formed in the very bosom of polytheism a certain code of practical religion: and from the semi-barbarous age of Orpheus, down to the times of a Solon, a Plato, and a Pindar, Providence continued to raise up moral instructors of mankind, in the persons of bards, or legislators, or philosophers, who by their conceptions of a righteous governor of the universe, and their maxims of social duty and natural piety, counteracted the degrading influence of superstition on the manners of the people: and sowed the germs of that domestic and public virtue which so long upheld in power and prosperity the sister communities of Greece. The same spirit pervades the writings of Hesiod.
It is evident even in the times that have passed since the gospel light was shed abroad among the nations, that a perverted system of theology may perfectly consist with a pure practical religion: that scholastic subtleties, unscriptural traditions, and uncharitable dogmas, may constitute the creed, while the religion of primitive Christianity influences the heart. So, in estimating the character of Hesiod, we must separate those superstitions which belong to a traditionary mythology, from that system of opinions which respected the guidance of human life; the accountableness of nations and individuals to a heavenly judge; and the principles of public equity and popular justice which he derived from the national institutions. If we examine his poems in this view of their tendency and spirit, we shall find abundant cause for admiration and respect of a man, who, born and nurtured upon the lap of heathen superstition, could shadow out the maxims of truth in such beautiful allegories, and recommend the practice of virtue in such powerful and affecting appeals to the conscience and the reason.
They, however, who can feel the infinite superiority of Christianity over every system of philosophic morals, will naturally expect that the morality of Hesiod should come short of that point of purity, which he, who reads our nature, proposed through the revealer of his will as a standard for the emulation of his creatures. But in the zeal of commenting upon an adopted author, we find that every thing equivocal has been strained to some unobjectionable sense; we are presented with Christian graces for heathen virtues; and Hesiod is not permitted to be absurd even in his superstitions; which are thought to involve some refined emblematical meaning; some lesson of ethical wisdom or of economical prudence.
The similitude of patriarch and prophet, with whom he is compared by Robinson, is not a very exaggerated comparison, in so far as respects the simplicity of an ancient husbandman, laying down rules for the general œconomy of life; or the graver functions of a philosopher, denouncing the visitations of divine justice on nations and their legislators, greedy of the gains of corruption. But the learned editor is unfortunate in selecting for his praise the meek and placable disposition of Hesiod as completing the patriarchal character. The indignation which Hesiod felt at the injuries done him by a brother, and the venality of his judges, might reasonably excuse the bitterness of rebuke: but he should not be held up as a model of equanimity and forbearance. To this graceless brother he seldom ever addresses himself in any gentler terms than μεγα νηπιε, greatly foolish: and I question whether Perses, if he could rise from the dead, would confess himself very grateful for the tenderness of this reprehension.
The adverse decision in the law-suit with his brother must be confessed to be the hinge on which the alleged corruptness of his times perpetually turns: yet as he does not conceal the personal interest which he has in the question, his frankness wins our confidence; and simplicity and candour are so plainly marked in his grave and artless style, that we are insensibly led to form an exception in his favour as to the judgment of the character from the writer; to believe his praises of frugality and temperance sincere; and to coincide with Paterculus, in the opinion that he was a man of a contented and philosophical mind, “fond of the leisure and tranquillity” of rustic life.
His countrymen, as Addison expresses it, must have regarded him “as the oracle of the neighbourhood.” Plutarch adverts to his medical knowledge, in the person of Cleodemus the physician; and when we consider that he possessed sufficient astronomy for the purposes of agriculture, and that he carried his zeal for science even into nautical details, of which, notwithstanding, he confesses his inexperience, we shall acknowledge him to have been a man of extraordinary attainments for the times in which he lived.