Close to the gates a spacious garden lies, From storms defended and inclement skies; Four acres was the allotted space of ground, Fenced with a green enclosure all around; Tall thriving trees confessed the fruitful mould, And reddening apples ripen here to gold. Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows; With deeper red the full pomegranate glows; The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, And verdant olives flourish round the year. The balmy spirit of the western gale Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail; Each dropping pear a following pear supplies; On apples apples, figs on figs arise: The same mild season gives the blooms to blow, The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow. Here ordered vines in equal ranks appear, With all the united labors of the year; Some to unload the fertile branches run, Some dry the blackening clusters in the sun, Others to tread the liquid harvest join, The groaning presses foam with floods of wine. Here are the vines in early flower descried, Here grapes discolored on the sunny side, And there in Autumn's richest purple dyed. Beds of all various herbs, forever green, In beauteous order terminate the scene. Two plenteous fountains the whole prospect crowned: This through the garden leads its streams around, Visits each plant, and waters all the ground; While that in pipes beneath the palace flows, And thence its current on the town bestows. To various use their various streams they bring; The people one, and one supplies the king. --Odyssey, B. VII. POPE'S Trans. CHAPTER II. THE FABULOUS AND LEGENDARY PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY. I. GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY. As the Greeks, in common with the Egyptians and other Eastern nations, placed the reign of the gods anterior to the race of mortals, Grecian mythology--which is a system of myths, or fabulous opinions and doctrines respecting the universe and the deities who were supposed to preside over it--forms the most natural and appropriate introduction to Grecian history. Our principal knowledge of this system is derived from the works of Homer, He'si-od, and other ancient writers, who have gathered the floating legends of which it consists into tales and epic poems, many of them of great power and beauty. Some of these legends are exceedingly natural and pleasing, while others shock and disgust us by the gross impossibilities and hideous deformities which they reveal. Yet these legends are the spontaneous and the earliest growth of the Grecian mind, and were long accepted by the people as serious realities. They are, therefore, to be viewed as exponents of early Grecian philosophy,--of all that the early Greeks believed, and felt, and conjectured, respecting the universe and its government, and respecting the social relations, duties, and destiny of mankind,--and their influence upon national character was great. As a Scotch poet and scholar of our own day well remarks,