EARLY PROSE WRITINGS.

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Moreover, the introduction of facilities for writing favored the development of prose literature; for, unlike poetry, it needed a written form to give it permanence. When the art of writing became familiar, and men with its help could rapidly inscribe their thoughts for others still more rapidly to read, prose, as a distinct branch of composition, was born; and its birth marked an era in the intellectual growth of the Greeks.

Ever since the introduction of letters, prose had doubtless been used more or less in despatches, records, laws, and official documents. Pherecy'des of Sy'ros and Cadmus of Miletus (about 550 B.C.) were the first to secure its recognition as a department of polite literature, the one embodying in it his philosophical doctrines, the other the fabulous history of his native land—with homely strength, if not with artistic finish.

Era of the Sages. In the period during which prose gained its first foothold flourished the Seven Sages of Greece (665540 B.C.). Revolutions were then the order of the day, the people were beginning actively to assert their rights, and political questions of vital interest absorbed the attention of thinkers. The flights of fancy became fewer, as these grave problems presented themselves. Philosophers strove to solve them at home; patriots went abroad to study foreign institutions; and all awoke to the discovery that "knowledge is power."

The Seven Sages were gnomic poets, as well as philosophers and statesmen: Their moral and political maxims they usually threw into verse; but those inscribed on plates of metal and deposited in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, were in prose. In their proverbs, whether prose or poetry, we discern the dawn of moral philosophy.

SOLON.-The greatest of the Seven Sages were Solon and Thales. Solon of Athens was born about 638 B.C. After extensive travels and studies, he drew up for the Athenians (594 B.C.) the famous code called by his name, which re

formed many abuses and secured to the people a liberal government. His laws were written in prose on the polished

After Solon's code was adopted, that it might be the better enforced, its author is said to have absented himself from Athens for ten years, visiting among other courts that of Croesus, King of Lydia. To this visit, Croesus owed his life; for afterward, when chained to the stake by Cyrus the Persian, the truth of one of Solon's remarks,-that no man can be accounted happy while he still lives,-flashed upon his mind, and he thrice called upon the name of the Athenian sage. Cyrus demanded an explanation of his words, and, struck with the truth of Solon's saying, revoked the order of execution and made Croesus his friend.

THALES, of Miletus in Ionia (640-550 B.C.), was the founder of Greek philosophy. Water, according to his theory, was the source of all things; without this element, he truly said, his own body would fall into dust. This doctrine he is supposed to have derived from the Egyptians, who worshipped the Nile as a god, being dependent on its annual inundations for their crops.

In mathematical science and astronomy, Thales was an adept. His knowledge of the latter enabled him to predict a solar eclipse, which took place 610 B.C., and to divide the year into three hundred and sixty-five days. If he was an author, not a line of what he wrote has survived.

Fable.

An outgrowth of these practical times was the

Fable, or Allegory, in which the lower animals were introduced as speakers, with the object of satirizing the follies of mankind, or of conveying some useful moral more pointedly than by means of dry argument.

Destitute of the outward form of poetry, while in a measure retaining its imagery, fable may be regarded as a steppingstone from the early lyrics to the stately prose of a later period. It at once became popular, as did also a kindred class of humorous tales, the characters of which were inanimate objects endowed with the power of speech. An earthen pot, for example, is represented as clamoring loudly against the woman who broke it; and she, as bidding it cease its plaints and show its wisdom by buying a copper ring to bind itself together."

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ÆSOP.-The great fabulist of Greece, and indeed of all time, was Æsop. Born a Phrygian slave about 620 B.C., he passed from one master to another till at last his wit gained him freedom. Thus left to choose his own course, he became a student in foreign lands. Athens was his home for a number of years; and there, in his well-known fable of "the Frogs asking Jupiter for a King," he read a lesson both to Pisistratus the Tyrant and to the people who imagined themselves oppressed under his government.

By special invitation, Æsop spent some time at the court of Croesus. Here he made the acquaintance of Solon, who had incurred that monarch's displeasure by speaking lightly of his vaunted wealth; and he is said to have admonished the Athenian sage that a wise man should resolve either not to converse with kings at all, or to converse with them agreeably."—" Nay,” replied Solon, "he should either not converse with them at all, or converse with them usefully."

Croesus commissioned Esop to go to Delphi for the purpose of sacrificing to Apollo and distributing a sum of money among the citizens. But Æsop quarrelled with the Del

phians, and taking it upon himself to withhold from them the Lydian gold, was seized by the enraged people and hurled from a precipice. Legend says that the murderers brought upon themselves the vengeance of heaven in the form of mysterious plagues.

While these particulars of Æsop's life rest on rather dubious authority, it is certain that as a fable-writer he was deservedly appreciated in ancient Greece. At Athens, Æsop's Fables became indispensable to a polite education. Their author does not appear to have committed them to writing; they passed from mouth to mouth for generations, undergoing more or less change. Hence we have left only the substance of those pointed stories over which the Athenians went into transports, and which Socrates amused himself by turning into verse during his imprisonment. The young folks of every age, with whom Esop has always been a favorite, would applaud the Athenians for placing the statue of the world's great fabulist before those of their Seven Sages.

When the people of Samos were on the point of executing a public officer who had robbed the treasury, they were induced to spare the offender by Æsop's spicy fable of

THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG.

A Fox, while crossing a river, was driven by the stream into a narrow gorge, and lay there for a long time unable to get out, covered with myriads of horse-flies that had fastened upon him. A Hedgehog, who was wandering in that direction, saw him, and taking compassion on him, asked if he should drive away the flies that were so tormenting him. But the Fox begged him to do nothing of the sort.

"Why not?" asked the Hedgehog.

"Because," replied the Fox, "these flies that are upon me now are already full, and draw but little blood; but should you remove them, a swarm of fresh and hungry ones will come, who will not leave a drop of blood in my body."-JAMES.

Progress of Greek Prose. An impetus was given to the development of Greek prose by the praiseworthy efforts of

EARLY GREEK PROSE.

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Pisistratus (537-527 B.C.), who gathered the first library in Greece, collected and edited the poems of Homer, and imitated his kinsman Solon in laboring to elevate the literary taste of the people. During his administration and that of his sons Hippias and Hipparchus, also patrons of letters, prose literature took deep root throughout the Ionian colonies, where history and philosophy had many representatives.

The style of these early writers was for the most part fragmentary, dry, and inelegant. It soon improved, however, grew into favor, and in the hands of the profound thinkers, fluent historians, and persuasive orators of Greece, was wrought into models which are still the admiration of the world.