The work of the Greek historian, Polybius, originally in forty volumes, of which only five remain entire covered a period from the downfall of the Macedonian power to the subversion of Grecian liberty by the Romans, 146 B.C. It is a work of great accuracy, but of little rhetorical polish, and embraces much of Roman history from which Livy derived most of the materials for his account of the wars with Carthage. In the first century of our era, Plutarch, a Greek biographer, wrote the "Parallel Lives" of forty-six distinguished Greeks and Romans--a charming and instructive work, translated by John and William Langhorne in 1771, and by Arthur Hugh Clough in 1858. A history of Greece, in seven volumes, by George Finlay, a British historian, long resident at Athens, is noted for a thorough knowledge of Greek topography, art, and antiquity. The completed work embraces a period from the conquest of Greece by the Romans to the middle of the present century. A History of Greek Literature, by J, P. Mahaffy, is the most polished descriptive work in the department which it embraces. It is happily supplemented by J. Addington Symonds' Studies of the Greek Poets. Mr. Mahaffy, in common with many German scholars, is an unbeliever in the unity of the Iliad. CONTENTS. [The names of authors from whom selections are taken are in CAPITOLS.] CHAPTER I. GENERAL VIEW OF THE GRECIAN STATES AND ISLANDS. Introductory.--Olympus.--HEMANS.--Pi'e-rus.--POPE. 1. Thessaly.--Tem'pe.-HEMANS. 2. Epi'rus.--Cocy'tus, Ach'eron, Dodo'na.--MILTON: HAYGARTH: BYRON. 3. Acarna'nia. 4. Æto'lia. 5. Lo'cris. 6. Do'ris. 7. Pho'cis.--Parnassus.--BYRON.--Delphi.--HEMANS. 8. Bœo'tia.--Thebes.--SCHILLER. 9. Attica.--BYRON. 10. Corinth.--BYRON: HAYGARTH. 11. Acha'ia. 12. Arca'dia. 13. Ar'golis.--Myce'næ.--HEMANS. 14. Laco'nia. 15. Messe'nia. 16. E'lis. 17. The Isles of Greece.--BYRON. Lemnos.--Euboe'a.--Cyc'la-des.--De'los.--Spor'a-des.-- Crete.--Rhodes.--Sal'amis.--Ægi'na.--Cyth'-era.-- "Venus Rising from the Sea."--WOOLNER. Stroph'a-des.--VIRGIL.--Paxos.--Zacyn'thus.-- Cephalo'nia.--Ith'aca.--Leu'cas or Leuca'dia.-- Corcy'ra or Cor'fu.--"Gardens of Alcin'o-us." CHAPTER II. THE FABULOUS AND LEGENDARY PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY.