I should, therefore, be inclined to consider the first fifty-six lines only as belonging to the Fourth Catalogue. This introductory part, ending with the birth of Hercules, is awkwardly coupled with his warlike adventure in the grove of Apollo by the line Who also slew Cygnus, the magnanimous son of Mars. This line is perceptibly the link of connexion between the two fragments, and betrays the hand of the interpolator. The succeeding passage, as far as verse 153, I conjecture to have formed a part of the Herogony. It seems probable that Hesiod’s description of the sculpture on the Shield of Hercules was limited to the dragon in the centre, and the figure of Discord hovering above it; and was meant to end with the effects produced by the sight of this shield on the hero’s enemies. This short description appears to have suggested the experiment of ingrafting upon it a florid parody of the Shield of Achilles; and that here precisely we may fix the commencement of the spurious additions is probable from the verses Οστεα δε σφι, περι ρινοῖο σαπεισης, Σειριου αζαλεοιο, κελαινῇ πυθεται αιῃ. Through the flesh that wastes away Beneath the parching sun, their whitening bones Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust: being instantly followed by a passage from the Achillean Shield: Εν δε προιωξις, &c. Pursuit was there, and fiercely rallying Flight. I suppose, therefore, the description of the putrefying corses of the foes of Hercules to have joined the 320th verse; where he is made to grasp the shield and ascend the chariot. Several of the subsequent passages, as, in particular, the description of the Cicada, appear to me genuine; but they are visibly patched with Homeric similes, which are in general mere plagiarisms; and are not at all in unison with the style of the rest of the poem; nor with the characteristic manner of Hesiod. This mixture of authenticity and imposture will explain the contradictory decisions of learned men; who, in examining this curious question, have looked only at one side. It does not appear that Hesiod was the most ancient author either of a theogony or a rural poem; although Herodotus speaks of him as the first who framed a theogonic system for the Greeks, and Pliny cites him as the earliest didactic poet on agriculture. But tradition has preserved the fame of theogonies by Orpheus and Musæus: and Tzetzes mentions two poems of Orpheus, the one entitled _Works_, the other _Diaries_; the archetypes, probably, of The Works and Days. Quintilian observes that “Hesiod rarely rises, and a great part of him is occupied in names; yet he is distinguished by useful sentences conveying precepts, and a commendable sweetness of words and construction; and the palm is given him in that middle kind of writing.”