Few of the poems* ascribed to Hesiod are now extant, and there is much difference of opinion respecting the small number that have reached us ; these arc the Theogo ny, the Works and Days, and the Shield of Hercules. These remains have manifestly suffered greatly from corruption and mutilation. The many spurious additions and altera. tions with which modern interpolators have loaded and dis figured them have so changed their original simple cha racter, as to raise serious doubts of their antiquity.
Joseph Scaliger denies that the Shield of Hercules is the production of Hesiod, while Tanaquil Faber as confidently affirms it to be genuine. This contrariety of decision, in persons so competent to decide, can be accounted for only by the unauthentic and adulterated state of the poem. With regard to his rank as a poet, Quintilian has given him the slender praise of mediocrity. " If the Battle of the Ti tans," says Mr Elton, 44 be Hesiod's genuine composition, and if the Shield, as there is reason to believe, contain au thentic extracts from his heroical genealogies, we shall de cide that Hesiod, as compared with Homer, is less rapid, less fervent in action, less teeming with allusions and com parisons ; but grand, energetic, occasionally vehement and daring ; but more commonly ptoceeding with a slow and stately pace. In mental or mural sublime, I consider Ile
siocl as superior to Homer." We subjoin a list of the lost poems of I lesiod.—The Ca talogue of Women or Heroines, in five parts, of which the fifth appears to have been entitled The Hcrogony" The Melampodia, a poem on divination. The great Astrono my, or Stellar Book. Descent of Theseus into Hades. Admonitions of Chiron to Achilles. Soothsaying and Ex plications of Signs. Divine Speeches. Great Actions. Of the Dactyli of Cretan Ida ; discoverers of iron. Epi thalamiwn of Peleus and Thetis. Łgernius. Elegy on Batrachus, a beloved youth. Circuit of the Earth. The Marriage of Ceyx. On Herbs.
See an ingenious dissertation on the Life of Hesiod, pre fixed to a new translation of his Remains, by Charles Abra ham Elton. Lond. 1815. (v)