I see Anacreon smile and sing, His silver tresses breathe perfume; His cheeks display a second spring, Of roses taught by wine to bloom. Away, deceitful cares, away, And let me listen to his lay; Let me the wanton pomp enjoy, While in smooth dance the light-winged hours Lead round his lyre its patron powers, Kind laughter and convivial joy. The following is Cowper's translation of a pretty little poem by Anacreon on the grasshopper: Happy songster, perched above, On the summit of the grove, Whom a dew-drop cheers to sing With the freedom of a king, From thy perch survey the fields, Where prolific Nature yields Naught that, willingly as she, Man surrenders not to thee. For hostility or hate, None thy pleasures can create. Thee it satisfies to sing Sweetly the return of spring, Herald of the genial hours, Harming neither herbs nor flowers. Therefore man thy voice attends, Gladly; thou and he are friends. Nor thy never-ceasing strains Phoebus and the Muse disdains As too simple or too long, For themselves inspire the song. Earth-born, bloodless; undecaying, Ever singing, sporting, playing, What has Nature else to show Godlike in its kind as thou? * * * * * III. EARLY GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. We now enter upon a new phase of Greek literature. While the first use of prose in writing may be assigned to a date earlier than 700 B.C., it was not until the early part of the sixth century B.C. that use was made of prose for literary purposes; and even then prose compositions were either mythological, or collections of local legends, whether sacred or profane. The importance and the practical uses of genuine history were neither known nor suspected until after the Persian wars. But Grecian philosophy had an earlier dawn, and was coeval with the poetical compositions of Hesiod, although it was in the sixth century that it began to be separated from poetry and religion, and to be cultivated by men who were neither bards, priests, nor seers. This is the era when the practical maxims and precepts of the Seven Grecian sages began to be collected by the chroniclers, and disseminated among the people. THE SEVEN SAGES. Concerning these sages, otherwise called the "Seven Wise Men of Greece," the accounts are confused and contradictory, and their names are variously given; but those most generally admitted to the honor are Solon (the Athenian legislator); Bias, of Ionia; Chi'lo (Ephor of Sparta); Cleobu'lus (despot of Lindos, in the Island of Rhodes); Perian'der (despot of Corinth); Pit'tacus (ruler of Mityle'ne); and Tha'les, of Mile'tus, in accordance with the following enumeration: