almost expressed, that Plato would have gladly realised, by predicting its existence, an Athenian school of eloquence upon the principles of Logic in opposition to that corrupted and corrupting Sicilian school; and that he wished, if possible, to invite the support of Lysias, who is considered as standing intermediate between the two. If we regard from this point of view the manner in which Anaxagoras, Pericles and Hippocrates are here brought forward, this supposition may well find support, and even such an idea, so much of it at least as concerns the interests of his native city, can only be attributed to Plato's youth at the time.

In opposition then to all these arguments, which from so many different points all meet in the same centre, what Tennemann adduces in favour of a far later period for the composition of the Phædrus, almost the last of Plato's existence as a writer, can have little weight. For, as regards the Egyptian story, there is indeed no occasion here to suppose with Ast a proverbial mode of speaking, but Plato himself gives us a pretty clear hint that this tale was composed by himself, and in order to have done so, he need not necessarily have been in that country any more than he actually brought from Thrace the Thracian Leaf mentioned in the Charmides with the Philosophy involved in it. And as to the second ground, namely, the similarity between what is said in this dialogue of the effect of writing, and what occurs to the same purpose in the seventh of the Platonic letters; it would seem that Tennemann himself did not mean the expressions in the Phædrus to apply to the same particular case which is the basis of the discussions in that letter, and consequently that he does not maintain that the Phædrus was not written till after Plato's visit to

the younger Dionysius. But he only thinks, in general, that here also disagreeable circumstances in consequence of writing must have preceded such expressions as we find in the Phædrus. But of this there is no trace at all to be found; and be the case as it may with that letter, the depreciation of writing in comparison with true and living philosophical communication is itself perfectly intelligible as a justification of Socrates' abstinence from writing, and as a sentiment inspired by that method of teaching which Plato at that time despaired of ever imitating in written treatises, though he afterwards learnt to do so, and did not end with believing to the same extent in the utter incommunicability of Philosophy, although, as we see, he was well aware from the first that it could not be learnt historically. But perhaps that author does in reality hold to another ground still behind that already brought forward; namely, that in the Phædrus so much that is Platonic appears, while he is only disposed to consider those writings of an early date which connect themselves immediately with Socrates, and in which the peculiar style of Plato is still wanting, esteeming so large a work and with such a subject as only adapted to later times. But every skilful and selfexperienced person will certainly allow that true philosophizing does not commence with any particular point, but with a breathing of the whole, and that the personal character of the writer, as well as the peculiarities of his modes of thought and views of things in general, must be to be found in the first commencement of the really free and independent expression of his sentiments. Why, therefore, should not the communication of the Platonic philosophy begin thus ? Or if we are to believe that Plato was not merely for a certain period a simply

passive learner, but also wrote as such, then it would be necessary to be able to point out a marked division between these two opposite classes of his works, a task which no one would be in a condition to perform. For the existence in the Phædrus of the germs of nearly the whole of his system, is hardly to be denied; but then their undeveloped state is quite as clear, and at the same time their imperfection betrays itself so clearly in that direct method in the conduct of the dialogue which constitutes the peculiar superiority of Plato, throughout the continuous and uninterrupted course of the last half, that it may be expected that skilful readers will agree as to the position to be assigned to this dialogue.

Among the grounds here adduced for this arrangement, that old tradition which distinguished the Phædrus as the first of Plato's works, has, not improperly, considering the importance of the subject, found no place. For Diogenes and Olympiodorus refer the origin of this tradition to no competent testimony; on the contrary, what these authors say tends rather to favour the hypothesis, that this arrangement was only supposed already in early times, in order to destroy several objections made to this dialogue; as to whether, for instance, the language of it kept within the limits of pure prose, or indeed whether the whole investigation was not excusable only in consideration of the youth of the writer. It is evident what is meant by the last, namely, the erotic question; but in the first allegation one of the most eminent masters of antiquity agrees, and that in no gentle manner-I mean Dionysius. What the nature of the case may be as regards that point, will best appear from what still remains for us to do;

namely, to add certain preliminary elucidations concerning the particular details of the work.

The Introduction is praised by Dionysius, and without taking offence at the piece of natural description in it, he accounts it an instance of that homely and temperate style, which, as the peculiar province of the school of Socrates, belongs, he thinks, to Plato in even an eminent degree. The first speech which Phædrus reads to Socrates he clearly recognizes as a work of the celebrated orator, a point upon which no one will entertain a doubt, although an English Philologist has laid a penalty on the belief of it. Now if more had remained to us of the collection of Lysias' erotic publications, we should be better able to judge of the relation of this speech to others of that writer, as regards the art and character displayed in it. This here however is not deserving of much praise in itself; for the uniformity in the moulding of the particular propositions, as well as the mode of connecting them, could hardly be given in the translation to the vicious extent to which they exist, and the indefiniteness of expression which almost always admits of several meanings, is a crux for the interpreter. Now supposing the others to have been like this, the whole was an attempt, not indeed thoughtlessly entered upon, but still perfectly unsuccessful, towards an extension in the Art of Speaking. Then the first Socratic speech carries forward the principle of Lysias more thoroughly and clearly worked out. Now here Dionysius at once censures the invocation to the Muses which precedes it, thinking that it comes down suddenly like storm and tempest from a clear sky, destroying the pure prose-a tastless piece of poetastry. And Dionysius adds that Plato means soon to acknow

ledge himself that this is a specimen of high sounding sentences and dithyrambs, with great pomp of words and little meaning, when he says to Phædrus that he should be surprised at nothing in the sequel, for that what he is now uttering is not far short of dithyrambs. Now as to that invocation to the Muses, we might perhaps allow an affectation in the sportive derivations in it; but, looking to the whole structure, scarcely any one would be disposed to deny its claim to the title of prose. By the surprise, on the contrary, which Plato expresses at the dithyrambic nature of his sentences, he certainly did not intend to express any censure upon himself. For any one who pays attention to the passage in which this occurs, will easily discover that it does not refer to any kind of Poetic inspiration; but that Plato only intended, certainly not to his own disadvantage, to attract notice to the distinction between his own rythmus and that of Lysias. For in the latter all the periods are turned with a monotonous uniformity, one like another split into antetheses; and the whole speech is pervaded by one and the same extremely flat melody. In that of Plato on the contrary, the rhythmus is in continuous gradation, so that he begins, where his ideas are far-fetched, with short propositions at a quick step, and as the speech advances from the general to the particular, the sentences also become more developed and articulated; until at last the orator, when he has reached a culminating point, hovers around it, and as it were poises himself in a slowly revolving period. Yet, notwithstanding, the structure of these periods appears, to us at least, perfectly prosaic, as also the epithets are taken from the philosophical and not from the poetical province of the subject.