her senses, is described
with peculiar elegance and sensibility[42].

[Footnote 40: Thus Horace represents her

_AEoliis fidibus quaerentem
Sappho puellis de popularibus_. Lib. II. Od. 13.]

[Footnote 41: +Theou he Sappho ta sumbainonta tais erotikais maniais
pathemata ek ton parepomenon, kai ek tes aletheias, autes hekastote
lambanei+, &c. De Lub. c. 10.]

[Footnote 42: Longinus speaks with transport of this beautiful
fragment of antiquity. +Ou thaumazeis hos hup' auto ten psuchen
to soma tas akoas ten glossan tas opseis ten chroan, panth' hos
allotria dioichomenoi epizetei. Kai kath' hupenantioseis hama
psuchetai, kaietai, alogistei, phronei--hina me en ti peri auten
pathos phainetai, pathon de SUNODOS.+ De. Lub. c. 10.]

We are at a loss to judge of the character of Alcaeus, the countryman and
rival of Sappho, because scarce any fragment of his writings has reached
the present times. He is celebrated by the Ancients as a spirited
Author, whose poems abounded with examples of the sublime and vehement.
Thus Horace says, when comparing him to Sappho, that he sung so forcibly
of wars, disasters, and shipwrecks, that the Ghosts stood still to hear
him in silent astonishment[43]. The same Poet informs us, that he
likewise sung of Bacchus, Venus, the Muses, and Cupid[44]. From these
sketches of his character we may conclude that his pieces were
distinguished by those marks of rapid and uncontrolled imagination,
which we have found to characterise the works of the first Lyric Poets.

[Footnote 43:
_Te sonantem plenius aureo
Alcaee plectro, dura navis,
Dura fugae mala, dura belli.
Utrumque sacro digna silentio
Mirantur Utmbrae dicere._ ----Hor. ub. sup.]

[Footnote 44:
_Liberum & Musas, Veneremque & illi
Semper haerentem puerum canebat,
Et Lycum nigris oculis nigroque
Crine decorum._ Carm. Lib. I. Od. 32.]

Your Lordship needs not be told, that the Roman Poet who had the
advantage of improving upon so many originals, takes in a greater
variety of subjects than any of his predecessors, and runs into more
diffuse and diversified measure. I have said, my Lord, that his subjects
are more diversified, because in the character of a Lyric Poet we must
consider him as a professed imitator both of Anacreon and of Pindar. In
the former point of view he falls under our immediate cognisance; in the
latter w