Passing from the fervor of youth to the reflection of maturity, the epic muse retreated before the lyric. Plants of a richer foliage and more pungent perfume sprang up in the garden of poetry. Language more compressed and intense was required, and the Æolic and Doric became the appropriate organ of the latter, as the Ionic had been of the former style. In the Attic era, the partial excellence of earlier times became fully developed under the focal effulgence of universal rays; and, as the altar of Vesta united all the citizens of the same town, the crowned champions in every department of letters gathered under "the eye of Greece," and paid tribute to the age of Pericles. Then each leading writer, called to conserve all antecedent worth, lived on the capital amassed by unskillful predecessors, and with innate facility wrought it into the continuous chain of human improvement. Not in the colossal and impracticable shapes which float in the mists of the hoary North, was this majestic style of literature produced; nor in the florid barbarism of the effete East and South, but with that profound feeling and piercing expression, elegant and forcible as an arrow from the bow of Ulysses, was it inspired with that lofty spirit of endeavor which leaps evermore towards the azure tent of the stars. If the car of the hero sometimes kindled its axle to a flame, as it neared the goal, his eye was yet undazzled, his hand faltered not on the curb, but the greater the momentum, the firmer was his grasp. So with the Greek poet, every thing was solid and refined, harmoniously fitted in the several parts, and superbly burnished as a whole. Though from the day of their becoming nationalized, the Greeks possessed vast stores of unwrought material, yet was nothing needlessly employed. They enhanced the value of their products by condensing their worth. What Corinna said to Pindar, who, in his youth, showed some inclination to extravagance, "That one must sow with the hand, not with a full sack," illustrates the national taste, and exemplifies a principle which pervades their entire literature. While always earnest, they never violate decorum, but in the greatest extremes of joy or grief, their heroes, like Polyxena, even in death, fall with dignity. It was most natural for the Greeks to symbolize imagination under the image of Pegasus, who bore reins as well as wings. The severity of their taste was yet further indicated by the legend that when borne by this power, Perseus with indecorous temerity flew too near Olympus, he was precipitated by the angry gods, though himself one of their sons.