The following Table of Contents has been added for the convenience of the reader.
[GREEK EPITAPHS AND INSCRIPTIONS.]
[NEW-ENGLAND.]
['MENS CONSCIA RECTI.']
[PORTUGUESE JOE.]
[THE POLYGON PAPERS.]
[STANZAS.]
[THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE.]
[IMPROMPTU.]
[CÀ ET LÀ.]
[NO'TH-EAST BY EAST.]
[THALES OF PARIS.]
[LINES TO A CANARY BIRD.]
[MEADOW-FARM: A TALE OF ASSOCIATION.]
[SONG.]
[LITERARY NOTICES.]
[EDITOR'S TABLE.]
[LITERARY RECORD.]
THE KNICKERBOCKER.
Vol. XXII. AUGUST, 1843. No. 2.
[GREEK EPITAPHS AND INSCRIPTIONS.]
Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori.—Horace.
Greece was the land of poetry. Endowed with a language, of all others adapted to every variation of feeling, from the deepest pathos or boldest heroism, to the lightest mirth, and gifted with the most exquisite sensibility to all the charms of poetry, it is not surprising that her inhabitants carried it to a height beyond any thing that the world has seen, before or since. It was intermingled with their daily life, it formed a portion of their very being, and constituted the chief source of their highest enjoyment. All Athens rushed daily to the theatre, to exult or weep as the genius of the poet directed them; and the people who could fine their greatest tragedian for harrowing their feelings beyond endurance, must have been differently formed from those of the present day. The well-known saying of old Fletcher of Saltoun, is not now true; but we can readily believe it, with such a race, when songs, like the glorious ode of Callistratus,
Εν μυρτω κλαδι το ξιφος φορησω. κ. τ. λ.