ANACREON, a famous Grecian lyric poet, and the father of that lighter species of versification which is employed in celebrating the influence of love, and in recommending the careless enjoyment of convivial plea sures.
The authentic particulars of the life of this celebrated bard are few. But the industry and ingenuity of his learned commentators, exerted with a degree of zeal that desert ed a more worthy object, and a more tul issue, have enabled them to spit, out his biography to a eonsulerable length ; by collecting all the hints which are to li• found scattered throughout the works 01 ancient writers, by interweaving truth with befit's', and wilen inlorloation was deft( lent, by substituthig conjI c ulla• for historical certainty. Those who are anxious to learn all that is stated, and inure than can be vouched for, on the subject, will be amply gratified by the perusal of Barne's .Inacreont. Vit.
Anacreon was born at Teos, a city of Ionia, ill the Gth century before the Christian era. The precise date of his th cannot be accurately ascertained ; nor are au thors agreed the names or a ir,atilistunces ol his parents ; but it is general!) supposed, that his family WI illit3trions. His eminent poetical ics, and ta lents for social intercourse., scent to hate early recom mended him to the notice of the most distinguished per sonages of the age in which he flourisned ; and he ap pears to have spent some part of his life at the court of Poiycrates, the accomplished tyrant of Santos, by w hunt he was highly esteemed and caressed. Indeed, the cul tivated genius, and the amiable and lively disposition of Anacreon, must have been considered as a valuable ac cession to his social circles, by a prince, who, like Hip par•hus of Athens, whom he rivalled in the encourage ment of polite literature, is celebrated as a liberal patrol' of learning and the arts ; and who spared no requisite ex pense, in order to render his throne the centre of all that could contribute to the sum of elegant pleasures, or con duce to the refinements of luxury. How long our poet continued to reside at Samos is uncertain ; but w e are informed, that he afterw arils remos ed to Athens, in compliance w ith the solicitations of Hipparchus, son of PISiStVatlIS, sent a vessel of fifty oars to conduct the bard, with letters expressive of his esteem and ad miration.—Plato in Ilippareho.
Anacreon lived to a good old age ; and the manner of his death appears so singularly characteristic, that we are inclined to place the account among the number o. those fictions, in which the Greeks were accustomed to envelope every circumstance relative to their distin guished countrymen. We are told, that lie was choked by the stone of a dried grape, while regaling upon some new wine, in the sith year of his age.—Pion I. vii. c. 7. Val. Max.!. ix. c. 12. e rtern. 8.
The character of Anacreon has been variously portray ed. Like most men of eminence, whose history is ob scured by the mist of antiquity, and whose character is but ambiguously represented in their works, he has been either loaded with extravagant praise, or overwhelmed by boundless and indiscriminating censure, according to the fancy or caprice of his biographers. Some have de scribed him as an habitual drunkard and debauchce, for ever wallowing in the mire of sensuality and licentious dissipation ; while others have held him up to our view, and recommended him to our imitation, as a model of virtue and moral purity.— rid. Barne's Le Fevre ; \l. Baillet, Jugemens des Scavans ; J. Vulpius, de Wild. peel. Moore, kc. These two sufficiently contrasted repre sentations are probably both overcharged. The ancient writers have not left us any very decisive information on the subject : and the literary productions of an author do not always contain the most certain evidence of his moral dispositions. In forming our estimate of the moral character of Anacreon, we would neither exalt him into a sage, nor sink him into a profligate. He appears to hat c been a careless, good-natured being, more alive to the pleasures than to the anxieties of the world ; whose life was not sullied by any of the more disgraceful and degrading vices ; and who sung of love and of wine, partly to indulge his own lively disposition ; and partly to gratify the taste of those by whom he was sur rounded. The testimonies of the ancients concerning him are, in general fa% ourable ; and will justify our at tributing to him the vita verecunda with the iiiicsa joc9sa of Ovid.