BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
OF
ANACREON.
Of this delightful author, nothing, beyond what we are already acquainted with, can now be known. Antiquity has long since interposed its impenetrable veil; and however brief and unsatisfactory the accounts which have been handed down to us, with them we must still remain satisfied. Succeeding writers, it is true, may seek to impart an air of novelty to their relations, by a new and ingenious arrangement of the scanty materials they possess; still, however, must they relate facts, substantially the same as others, and present to their readers, if not a tedious, yet certainly a "thrice-told tale." For the only authentic incidents relative to this elegant poet we are indebted to contemporary writers, or to those who flourished shortly after him, and from them we glean the few following particulars.
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