17–23 January 1825

Poetry, wise women have said, hath a noble inutility, and is loved, as the flowers of the field, because not the necessaries, but the luxuries of life ; yet I observe it has sometimes deigned to mix in the most important influences that act on society. The revolutionary spirit in this cold and prudential country, it is said, was kept alive and energized in 1776 by the seasonable aid of patriotic songs and satirical ballads pointing at well-known names and acts. Of Tyrtaeus and his conquering elegies who has not heard? And Greek history has another more extraordinary instance to the purpose. When Lycurgus medi- tated the introduction into Sparta of his unpre- cedented political model, he prevailed on Thales, whom he met as he travelled in Asia Minor, to pass to Laconia and compose poems there of such a character as to prepare the minds of his countrymen for the novel schemes of the Re- former.'