trifling, nothing affected in his manner; he resembles more a pure fountain than a great river."

Lysias attained the age of eighty-one, and of two hundred orations which he is said to have composed, thirty-four remain; of these there is an accurate edition by Taylor, and a very good translation by Dr. Gillies.

Isocrates was one of the most skilful and correct masters of composition; his attention to the graces and embellishments of style was so intense and curious that Quintilian blames him for too much care. His orations however possess the utmost dignity, simplicity and harmony, and display the finest morality cloathed in the purest and sweetest diction. He was too timid to speak in public, and had calculated his eloquence therefore for the schools. Thirty-one of his orations are left us, of which there is an elegant and valuable edition by Auger in three volumes quarto, printed by Didot; they have also been admirably translated by Dr. Gillies.

The works of Demetrius Phalereus on rhetoric, history and eloquence are com

pletely lost; he is considered by the author of the Institutes as possessing much ingenuity and great oratorial abilities: he is worthy of being had in remembrance, he observes, if for no other reason than being the last of the attic writers who can with propriety be deemed an orator. Cicero has given him the preference to all other writers in the middle species of eloquence, and in his treatise De Officiis lib. i. cap. i. terms him "disputator subtilis, orator parum vehemens, dulcis tamen,"

In the philosophic department, to which we are now arrived, our attention is immediately arrested by the celebrated name of Plato, a man whose acuteness of intellect, and splendour of imagination have seldom been surpassed. Sublime in his conceptions, majestic and fascinating in his style, pure in his principles, morals and life, he seems with justice to have deserved the appellation of "divine" so frequently bestowed upon him by the suffrage of antiquity. "Mihi non hominis ingenio," says Quintilian, sed quodam Delphico videatur oraculo instinctus." "He appears to me not so much endowed with the faculties of a man as inspired by some Delphic oracle.”

His dialogues display the whole of the Socratic philosophy in its utmost purity, and in language so exquisitely sweet and elegant that he was termed by the ancients the Athenian bee; he has added, however, many noble ideas of his own in these discourses, which have afforded objects of imitation to every succeeding age. In this country Shafsbury and Harris have made the nearest approaches to the platonic style.

The morality of Socrates forms but a part of the system of Plato; his fervid imagination delighted to expatiate in the regions of metaphysics and mystical theogony. He was a disciple of Heraclitus and Pythagoras, and maintained the immortality and transmigration of the soul. He taught also the existence of two beings, one self-existent, and the other formed by the power of a pre-existent creator. The origin of evil, the doctrine of ideal forms, the pre-existence of the human mind, which he terms an emanation from the deity, and the subserviency of matter to spirit, even in this life, are likewise part of his metaphysical opinions. The novelty, the sublimity and interesting nature of his enquiries, cloathed as

they are in the most majestic diction, have rendered him almost an object of adoration to men of warm fancies, and of a speculative turn of mind; even Cicero has exclaimed, "errare meherculè malo cum Platone, quam cum istis vera sentire;" and our own Milton, who possessed the most vivid and romantic imagination, early imbibed the enchanting dogmata of the Grecian philosopher. His juvenile poetry, especially his Comus, abounds in the peculiar conceptions of Plato, and in the Penseroso he exclaims

-let my lamp at midnight hour,
Be seen at some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato to unfold

What worlds, or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind, that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook.

The political abilities of Plato were likewise great, as his Republic sufficiently evinces; this, together with his dialogues and some letters, we are happily in possession of. The first edition of Plato came from the press of Aldus at Venice in 1513. The whole of his works

have been translated into English by Sydenham in four volumes quarto, and various versions have been attempted of separate dialogues, especially of the Phædon.

As a model of attic elegance and purity we may record Xenophon as unrivalled; the Graces themselves inspired his composition, and the Goddess of Persuasion dwelt upon his lips. "Ipsæ finxisse sermonem Gratiæ videantur; et in labris ejus sedisse quandam persuadendi Deum."✝ His opinions with regard to the divine nature, and the duties of morality and religion were those of his admired and beloved master, Socrates, of whom in his Memorabilia he has given so accurate and pleasing an account. As a warrior, as a statesman, as an author and the father of a family, he was equally excellent. His Anabasis or the retreat of the ten thousand, proclaims him aloud as the first of generals. The Cyropœdia displays in the most clear and ample manner what should be the conduct of a patriot prince. The beauty, simplicity and unaffected nature of his style, perhaps unequalled, bear sufficient

+ Quintilian.