In truth, if we omit those few vices in
our estimate which religion, at that time, not only connived at, but
consecrated, we shall be inclined to say that the disposition of our poet
was amiable; that his morality was relaxed, but not abandoned; and that
Virtue, with her zone loosened, may be an apt emblem of the character of
Anacreon.
Of his person and physiognomy, time has preserved such uncertain
memorials, that it were better, perhaps, to leave the pencil to fancy; and
few can read the Odes of Anacreon without imaging to themselves the form
of the animated old bard, crowned with roses, and singing cheerfully to
his lyre.
After the very enthusiastic eulogiums bestowed both by ancients and
moderns upon the poems of Anacreon, we need not be diffident in expressing
our raptures at their beauty, nor hesitate to pronounce them the most
polished remains of antiquity. They are indeed, all beauty, all
enchantment. He steals us so insensibly along with him, that we sympathize
even in his excesses. In his amatory odes there is a delicacy of
compliment not to be found in any other ancient poet. Love at that period
was rather an unrefined emotion; and the intercourse of the sexes was
animated more by passion than by sentiment. They knew not those little
tendernesses which form the spiritual part of affection; their expression
of feeling was therefore rude and unvaried, and the poetry of love
deprived it of its most captivating graces.
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