Philosophy of Antiquity [pp. 739-740]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
MR. EDITOR,-Reading the "Belles of Williamsburg" in your July number of the Messenger, induced
me to search amongst some old papers for the enclosed
graphical and beautiful lines, which though not written
at quite so early a period as 1777, will serve to show
that in 1799 the halo of refinement and wit was still
shining around that classical spot so famed in Virginia
history. P.
BEAUTY TO THE
BEAUX OF WILLIAMSBURG.
Gallants! who now so brisk and gay
From night to morn can dance away
As if you ne'er could tire,
Can beauty only warm your heels?
What, is there not one beau that feels
Her flame a little higher?
Have Phmbus and the sacred Nine
Been banished from their wonted shrine
Where Love his tribute paid?
Unaided by Apollo's rays
Will hymeneal altars blaze
Though sacrifice be made?
Gods! shall Amanda pass unsung?
Shall Stella fair and gay and young
Not swell the note of praise?
Shall blythe Cassandra's art and fire,
Her tuneful voice and tuneful lyre
No kindred effort raise?
Shall gentle Mira's sparkling eyes,
In ambuscade where Cupid lies,
Still sparkle on in vain,
As if, instead of lambent fire,
Like Leoparda's filled with ire
Or clouded with disdain?
Shall twenty other Nymphs beside
Unnoticed pass adown the tide
Of Time so swiftly flowing,
Without one stanza to their praise
To tell the folks of future days
That they were worth the knowing?
Should Valentine's once blythesome day
Thus quite neglected pass away,
Like some dull Sunday morning,
Narcissa mray begin to frown,
Nay, Flora with disdain look down,
So Beaux, I give you warning.
Idalian Grove, 14th February 1799.
PHILOSOPHY OF ANTIQUITY.
NO. I.
Of all the benefits that modern times owe to antiquity, the most important but at the same time the least
often acknowledged, is the boon of philosophy. The
poets, orators, and historians of Greece and Rome arc
in the hands of every school-boy, and are the pleasure
and study of all who pretend to education, while the
works of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the other lights
of antiquity (the heralds, they have been called, of the
true cross) languish here and there on the shelves of
some.old library, or in the shop of some antiquarian
Bibliopole. There is this remarkable difference between
philosophy and the lighter literature of antiquity. Homer and Herodotus, Demosthenes and his fellow orators,
flashed out, as it were, from the bosom of the people
with no warning-no precursor, and first established
that order or sequence of literary cultivation which the
experience of subsequent ages has proved infallible; I
mean first, poetry and eloquence-next, history, and
last of all, philosophy. Philosophy itself was no child
of the moment. As the sea-beach gains something as
each wave rolls over it, so was it with philosohpy. Each
age made its deposit at the bank of truth, and slowly
and imperceptibly, but with not less security, was that
mountain raised, which, however wildly raged the storms
of the middle ages-how much so ever its fair face was
obscured-still never ceased to exist, but served as a
place of rest to the weary bird of literature, a rest whence
the yet callow philosophy and unfledged history might
wing their infantine flight. We may give an era to
history-for there is great difference between it and
tradition-we may positively ascertain the first poet,
but we cannot approximate to the first philosopher.
Socrates is not the only sage who never gave his lucubrations to posterity, and we learn from its very name,
(love of wisdom,) that it is coeval with mind, nay, almost
one of its principles. Were we to treat as philosophy
only what has been written, we should be forced again
to bound our researches by what has descended to us,
and short indeed would be our course; but it is not so.
We know with as much certainty the opinions of those
who never wrote, as we do those of Plato and his followers, and are thus able to trace philosophy ab eve
usque ad male, from the alpha not to the omega, for that
has not been reached, but to the point at which we
find it now.
Philosophy first presents itself to the historian about
the commencement of the sixth century. The country
where we first behold it, is Asia Minor; beneath its
warm climate the Grecian colonists, who from time to
time had settled there, grew day by day more and more
cultivated, till at length they were the tutors of their
father-land. Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytelene
in Lesbos, Bias of Priene flourished in a quick succession, while as yet Hellas had produced but Solon, who
was more lawgiver than sage, and who would better be
associated with Lycurgus than with Thales.
The philosophy of Ionia was echoed back with increased vigor from Magna Grecia. It is customary for
the imagination, when Italy is its theme, to fly back
to the days of Rome-to revel with Horace and with
Cicero, with Virgil and Macunas. How great so ever
may be our veneration for those later ages, they should
never blot out from memory Italy's earlier civilization,
when Apuleia and Brutium were seats of learning instead
of Tuscany, and when Pythagoras was master of its
philosophy instead of Cicero and Seneca.
The point de depart of philosophy was the origin
of the world and its elementary principle. Perhaps it
was necessary that the mental machinery should first
be employed upon the grosser matter ere it should seize
hold of that lost delicate of all materials, mind-that
739
BEAUTY.