to the greatest possible distance from his own affections, and next, from the community, which he governs; to suppress farces of intemperate buffoonery, and the licentious authors of such ribaldry, whether in verse or prose; all lewd dances, with the meretricious gestures of the women who perform them; the squeaking disorderly measures of musical exhibitions, with all the fantastic and multifarious eccentricities of dissolute and frittered sounds. The ode alone will he sing himself, and approve in others the ode, which is perfectly accordant to the God of War, of notes strong and thrilling; not communicative of pleasurable and indolent sensations to the hearer, but of inextricable alarm and perturbation: such notes as Mars himself produced (s),

:

When with shrill shout he urged his Trojans on.

Achilles also, with his unassisted voice, and unseen by the Trojans, put them to the rout; and crusht twelve men to death with their own chariots and armour (4).

To the ode may be added also the song of Victory, such as Achilles commanded the Greeks to celebrate, whilst the body of Hector was conveying to the ships, in conjunction with himself, the leader of the band (u):

Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring
The corpse of Hector, and your Pæans sing.

Be this the song, slow-moving tow'rd the shore:
"Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more!"

We may admit also the animating war-song, such as the Spartan march, well adapted to the polity and institutions of Lycurgus:

Genuine sons of Sparta bold!

Firm and full your bucklers hold:
With intrepid step advance;

Poise and point the vengeful lance.
Life despise, and dare to fall:
Glory and your country call!

Dances too may be indulged, of a spirit congenial with these songs; not those of a tripping and indecent step, but sedate and chaste, in majestic measures, performed as a first-fruit offering to the Gods, and an appendage of military discipline. That warlike dance, for example, under arms; in which the poet has made Meriones excell, where a certain Trojan is introduced as thus addressing him (v):

Swift as thou art, the raging hero cries,
And skill'd in dancing to dispute the prize,
My spear, the destin'd passage had it found,
Had fix'd thy active vigour to the ground.

Or can you suppose this son of Molus, and a man numbered among the most illustrious of the Greeks, to have been eminent in any other than that military dance, first practised by the

Curetes (w), and peculiar to the Cretans? of a sharp and rapid movement, for the purpose of eluding and escaping with agility the weapon of an enemy.

In consistency with the same exceptions, it follows also, that a monarch should not pray in similar petitions to those of ordinary men; nor invoke the deities with a supplication like this of the Ionic bard, Anacreon;

Sovereign, all-subduing Love!

Azure Nymphs of Occan's grove ()
Sporting in whose train are seen,
With Beauty's rosy-blooming Queen,
O'er the mountains as they go
With a light fantastic toe:
See thy prostrate suppliant bend!
Deign a gracious ear to lend.

Cleubulus by thy counsel move

Warm his breast with mutual love.

Nor again those ejaculations and addresses of the Athenians, less adapted to the condition of kings, than the promotion of joviality in convivial fraternities :

I wish to an ivory lyre I was moulded,
That beautiful youths might bear me!
I wish in a necklace of gold I was folded,
That a delicate maiden might wear me!

How abundantly preferable is that prayer, which Homer has assigned to the sovereign of all the Greeks (y)!

Most glorious, mighty Jove! supreme alone!
Who in the gloom of heaven hast fix'd thy throne!
L'er yonder Sun sink in his western bed;
F'er shadowy Night her dusky mantle spread;
Grant me to lay in dust yon hostile spires,
And Priam's dome involve in wasting fires:
Through Hector's corslet may this sword descend!
May from his breast this arm that corslet rend!
Round their dead lord with many a ruthful wound
May his gored troops in anguish gnaw the ground!

Other precepts and specimens of discipline might be produced in great variety, of a kingly and heroic character, from Homer's poetry; of which at this time, perhaps, a minute detail were tedious. I must remark, however, with what clearness and decision he insists on the absolute necessity of all preeminent accomplishments in sovereigns: particularly by the example of Agamemnon, when his poem first exhibits the army in array (), and specifies all the generals, and the number of the ships. There, we see, no room left for competition to any other hero with a king as supreme in majesty, as a bull surpasses the herd in strength and size (a):

Like some proud bull that round the pasture leads
His subject herds, the monarch of the meads;

The king of kings, majestically tall,

Towers o'er his armies, and outstrips them all.

But this similitude must not be accepted in a

superficial sense, as a mere encomiastic decla

ration of the monarch's strength: for then he would have seen the propriety of comparing him rather with a lion: but as a signification of gentle nature and a provident consideration of his subjects. For the excellence of the bull is not confined to a noble generosity of spirit, nor does he exert his force for selfish purposes, as the lion, and boar and eagle (b), in pursuit of other animals, with strength conferred upon them for the sustentation of their being; so as to form a model rather of arbitrary despotism than kingly government: whilst the bull, to my apprehension, is evidently holden forth to kings, as a pattern for their conduct. He takes in peace the food, which is easily attainable, and presents itself before him, without extortion and injustice. The necessary materials of his support are supplied to him, as to kings in affluence and prosperity, with an unfailing exuberance: and he rules his species with a benevolent, if I may be indulged in this expression, and a providential sway: sometimes, conducting to their pasturage, and sometimes, when a wild beast appears, disdaining flight, engaging in the front of the whole herd, succouring the weak, and exerting all his prudence and solicitude to preserve their main body from those wild and formidable ravagers: as a ruler and a monarch in reality, worthy of that highest and most honourable station among men, would