We see in Homer a poet of the first class, holding the same place in literature that Plato holds in philosophy or Newton in science, and exercising a mighty influence on all the ages which have succeeded him.  He was born, probably, at Smyrna, an Ionian city; the dates attributed to him range from the seventh to the twelfth century before Christ.  Herodotus puts him at 850 B.C.  For nearly three thousand years his immortal creations have been the delight and the inspiration of men of genius; and they are as marvellous to us as they were to the Athenians, since they are exponents of the learning as well as of the consecrated sentiments of the heroic ages.  We find in them no pomp of words, no far-fetched thoughts, no theatrical turgidity, no ambitious speculations, no indefinite longings; but we see the manners and customs of the primitive nations, the sights and wonders of the external world, the marvellously interesting traits of human nature as it was and is; and with these we have lessons of moral wisdom,—­all recorded with singular simplicity yet astonishing artistic skill.  We find in the Homeric narrative accuracy, delicacy, naturalness, with grandeur, sentiment, and beauty, such as Phidias represented in his statues of Zeus.  No poems have ever been more popular, and none have extorted greater admiration from critics.  Like Shakspeare, Homer is a kind of Bible to both the learned and unlearned among all peoples and ages, —­one of the prodigies of the world.  His poems form the basis of Greek literature, and are the best understood and the most widely popular of all Grecian compositions.  The unconscious simplicity of the Homeric narrative, its high moral tone, its vivid pictures, its graphic details, and its religious spirit create an enthusiasm such as few works of genius can claim.  Moreover it presents a painting of society, with its simplicity and ferocity, its good and evil passions, its tenderness and its fierceness, such as no other poem affords.  Its influence on the popular mythology of the Greeks has been already alluded to.  If Homer did not create the Grecian theogony, he gave form and fascination to it.  Nor is it necessary to speak of any other Grecian epic, when the Iliad and the Odyssey attest the perfection which was attained one hundred and twenty years before Hesiod was born.  Grote thinks that the Iliad and the Odyssey were produced at some period between 850 B.C. and 776 B.C.

In lyrical poetry the Greeks were no less remarkable; indeed they attained to what may be called absolute perfection, owing to the intimate connection between poetry and music, and the wonderful elasticity and adaptiveness of their language.  Who has surpassed Pindar in artistic skill?  His triumphal odes are paeans, in which piety breaks out in expressions of the deepest awe and the most elevated sentiments of moral wisdom.  They alone of all his writings have descended to us, but these, made up as they are of odic fragments, songs, dirges, and panegyrics,