the only people who may be said in almost every instance to have
given birth to their own literature. Their creations stand almost
entirely detached from the previous culture of other nations. At
the same time it is possible to trace a thread running back to
remote antiquity, to show that their first hints of a literature
came from Asia. Their oldest traditions and poems have many
points of resemblance to the most ancient remains of the Asiatic
nations. Some writers say that "this amounts to nothing more than
a few scattered hints or mutilated recollections, and may all be
referred to the common origin of mankind, and the necessary
influence of that district of the world in which mental
improvement of our species was first considered as an object of
general concern." But this proves at least that there was an
older civilization and literature than the Greeks, and that that
civilization had its root in the East. According to their own
testimony the Greeks derived their alphabet from the Phoenicians,
and the first principles of architecture, mathematical science,
detached ideas of philosophy, as well as many of the useful arts
of life, they learned from the Egyptians, or from the earliest
inhabitants of Asia.

The essential characteristic of the Greeks as a nation was the
development of their own idea, their departure from whatever
original tradition they may have had, and their far-reaching
influence on all subsequent literature throughout the world. They
differed in this from all other nations; for to quote again:

"the literature of India,with its great antiquity, its language,
which is full of expression, sweetness of tone, and regularity of
structure, and which rivals the most perfect of those western