Cyrus the character of an accomplified monarch. All his works are interfperfed with the moftengaging fentiments of morality, and charm with the matchlefs grace of genuine fimplicity". ARISTOTLE, the most eminent scholar of Plato, did not embrace the fublime opinions of his great mafter upon divine fubjects, nor copy his florid ftyle of writing". His various works are remarkable for a fimplicity and a feverity of compofition. Authoritative and profound in all his opinions, he carried his indefatigable researches not only into natural, political, and moral subjects, but investigated the principles of elegant literature, and applied this judgment to the critical examination of the various branches of poetry and eloquence. As a logician he reigned with defpotic fway over the fchools of Europe for many ages, but by a revolution, common to human opinions, many of his works, in the prefent times, are more admired than ftudied.

The liberty of Greece gave free scope to the efforts of public fpeakers. The Athenians were gratified with liftening to the fpeeches of the artful Lyfias, the bold Demades, the polite and empaffioned Hyperides, the fevere Lycurgus, and the diffuse and

The pattern of perfect fimplicity; every where fmooth, harmonious, and pure; declining the figurative, the marvellous, and the mystic: afcending but rarely into the fublime; nor then fo much trufting to the colours of ftyle, as to the intrinfic dignity of the fentiment itself. Harris's Her. p. 423.`

Ariftotle, B. C. 345.

learned

1

learned Æfchines. But the palm of eloquence, thus contended for by his countrymen, is juftly affigned to the celebrated author of the Philippics. Severe and majeftic energy is the characteristic of the fentiments and language of DEMOSTHENES. He was too ferious and too dignified to aim at the ornaments of ftyle, except fuch as were manly and appropriate; he was too ardent to be diffufe, and too eager for action to wafte his time upon the circuitous arts of mild perfuafion. It was his great object to astonish by unexpected flashes of thought, to terrify by lively images of danger, and to convince by the most impreffive, and moft conclufive arguments. While he roused his flothful and procraftinating countrymen to check the advances, and revenge the aggreffions, of Philip of Macedon, who was both a crafty and powerful enemy; his orations equally proved the degeneracy of their manners, and the fublimity of his own genius. And what must have been the commanding power of his delivery, to which even Æfchines, his great and able rival, according to his own candid acknowledgment, could not do juftice! The energy of his manner, the modulation of his voice, and dignity of his action, correfponded with the force, and the compass of his reasoning, and combined to form the orator, to whom is defervedly affigned the foremoft place in the records of eloquence".

e

• Demofthenes, B. C. 339.

Το

"The Roman orator is too florid and rhetorical, his figures are too ftriking and palpable, the divifions of his discourse are drawn chiefly from the rules of the fchools. The manner of Demofthenes

To the Greeks we owe the improvement, if not the invention of grammar, logic, criticism, metaphyfics, mufic, geometry, medicine, and aftronomy; and many of the terms peculiar to each of thefe arts and sciences, clearly point out the country from which we have derived them. The refined invention of builders embellifhed their cities with those regular, well-proportioned, and elegant fpecimens of architecture, which difplayed the various forms of the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian orders. Athens was filled with temples, theatres, porticos, and veftibules, of matchlefs fymmetry and grandeur; and the pencils of Zeuxis, Parrhafius, and Polyg notus, and the chifels of Alcamenes, Phideas, and Polycletus, decorated them with the most beautiful pictures, bufts, and ftatues. The religion of the Greeks was peculiarly favourable to the exertions of artifts, and their facrifices, affemblies, and proceffions, were equally well adapted to painting, bas-relief, and fculpture. These artists animated the Parian marble, and gave life and paffion to the

Demofthenes is more chaste than that of Cicero. Could it be copied, its fuccefs would be infallible over a modern assembly. It is rapid harmony exactly adjusted to the fenfe: it is vehement reafoning, without any appearance of art: it is difdain, bold. nefs, anger, and freedom, involved in a continued stream of argu. ment and of all human productions, the orations of Demofthenes prefent to us the models, which approach the nearest to perfection." Hume's Effays, vol. i. p. 109. Travels of Anacharfis, vol. ii. p. 116. The character of his genius, vol. v. p. 184. Leland's Preface to his Tranflation of Demofthenes, 1ft, zd, 3d, and 4th Philippic, and 1ft, 2d, and 3d, Olynthiac Ora tions.

glowing

glowing canvafs. The continual view of the human body in the baths, and at the public games, familiarifed the artifts to the contemplation of forms the most elegant, and attitudes the most graceful. They copied the fairest appearances of nature, and by combining the fcattered beauties of various perfons in one fubject, gave no very inadequate reprefentation of that ideal excellence, which filled their. glowing imaginations. Theirs likewife was that exquifite judgment, the companion of genius, which inftantly felecting from art or nature whatever was excellent, gave to their works an irrefiftible charm., Such indeed was the diffufion of tafte, that even the common people, by conftantly furveying the fineft fpecimens of painting and fculpture, and hearing the most finished compofitions recited in the theatres, and public affemblies, became qualified to appreciate, with correct judgment, the various productions of their countrymen.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER VI.

The Subject continued.

AFTER fuch a digreffion as the foregoing, which, it may be prefumed, can require no apology, as the arts and literature of the Greeks, in their meridian glory, are the fubjects of it; we unite the broken thread of hiftory by remarking, that the memorable war of Peloponnefus derived its origin from the ambition of the Athenians, who were defirous of humbling the pride of Sparta, and making their own city the centre of Grecian dominion". As the Athenians poffeffed only a territory of 86 square leagues, while that of the Spartans confifted of 250, they were compelled to make the most vigorous exertions, to counterbalance, by every means, the fuperior resources of their rivais. To the difgrace of a people fo refined and civilized, this war was carried on with all the ferocity of Barbarians, and prefented a wide fcene of calamity and diftrefs, of cabal and civil difcord, of mifconduct and cruelty. Athens was defolated by a peftilential fever, far more deftructive than the fword of the enemy, yet it tended not to fix the volatile temper of her citizens upon any measures of peace. The capricious Alcibiades

à B. C. 431.

b De Pauw, vol. i. p. 115. Thucydides, lib. ii. chap. 47, 48, &c. Edit. Bipont. tom. ii. p. 71.