Notes.—­Sappho was a Greek poetess living on the island of Lesbos, about 600 B. C. Delos is one of the Grecian Archipelago, and is of volcanic origin.  The ancient Greeks believed that it rose from the sea at a stroke from Neptune’s trident, and was moored fast to the bottom by Jupiter.  It was the supposed birthplace of Phoebus, or Apollo.  The island of Chios, or Scios, is one of the places which claim to be the birthplace of Homer.  Teios, or Teos, a city in Ionia, is the birthplace of the Greek poet Anacreon.  The Islands of the Blest, mentioned in ancient poetry, were imaginary islands in the west, where, it was believed, the favorites of the gods were conveyed without dying.

At Marathon. (490 B. C.), on the east coast, of Greece, 11,000 Greeks, under the generalship of Miltiades, routed 110,000 Persians.  The island of Salamis lies very near the Greek coast:  in the narrow channel between, the Greek fleet almost destroyed (480 B.C.) that of Xerxes, the Persian king, who witnessed the contest from a throne on the mountain side.  Thermopylae is a narrow mountain pass in Greece, where Leonidas, with 300 Spartans and about 1,100 other Greeks, held the entire Persian army in check until every Spartan, except one, was slain.  Samos is one of the Grecian Archipelago, noted for its cultivation of the vine and olive.

A Bacchanal was a disciple of Bacchus, the god of wine.  Pyrrhus was a Greek, and one of the greatest generals of the world.  The phalanx was an almost invincible arrangement of troops, massed in close array, with their shields overlapping one another, and their spears projecting; this form of military tactics was peculiar to the Greeks.

Polycrates seized the island of Samos, and made himself tyrant:  he was entrapped and crucified in 522 B. C. Chersonese is the ancient name for a peninsula.  Sunium is the name of a promontory southeast of Athens.

LII.  NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. (209)

Charles Sprague, 1791-1875, was born in Boston, and received his education in the public schools of that city.  For sixteen years he was engaged in mercantile pursuits, as clerk and partner.  In 1820 he became teller in a bank; and, from 1825, he filled the office of cashier of the Globe Bank for about forty years.  In 1829 be gave his most famous poem, “Curiosity,” before the Phi Beta Kappa society, in Cambridge.  An active man of business all his days, he has written but little either in prose or poetry, but that little is excellent in quality, graceful, and pleasing.

The address from which this extract is taken, was delivered before the citizens of Boston, July 4th, 1825. ###