Solon, on the contrary, stands out clearly in the effulgence which under more auspicious influences poured on Attica. He was the second and more successful law-giver of his race, and also stood pre-eminent among the sages of his land. Success first attended him in poetry, and it was the opinion of Plato, that if he had elaborated his compositions with maturer care, they would have equaled the most celebrated productions of the ancients. But the prospective good of nations required him to apply the great endowments he possessed to moral and political purposes; and, according to Plutarch, "he cultivated chiefly that part of philosophy which treats of civil obligations." He pursued commerce, traveled widely, and, in patient research, accumulated those stores of observation and erudition which rendered him an honor to Athens, and a great benefactor to mankind. History, properly so called, originated with the Greeks, and in natural clearness and vivacity, portraiture of diversified incidents and profound observation of man, eminent success was first by that people attained. The great coryphæus in the prosaic chorus, Herodotus, has been compared to Homer, on account of his manifold charms and transparency of narrative. The depth and comprehensiveness of his knowledge, inquiries, attainments, and commentaries on antiquities in general, excite in competent judges the profoundest astonishment. He is called the father of history, as he was the first to pass from the mere traditions which furnished themes to the poets, and gave dignity to didactic prose as an independent branch of literature.