who was not the friend of Isocrates. Old age, such as his, was a very rare thing in Greece - a fact which is evident from the Greek work surviving on the subject of Macrobiotics: few cases occur beyond seventy. This accident, therefore, of length in Isocrates, must have made him already one of the standing lions in Athens for the last twenty-six years of his life; while, for the last seventy, his professorship of rhetoric must have brought him into connection with every great family in Greece. One thing puzzles us, what he did with his money, for he must have made a great deal. He had two prices; but he charged high to those who could afford it; and why not? people are not to learn Greek for nothing. Yet, being a teetotaller and a coward, how could he spend his money? That question is vexatious. However, this one possibility in the long man's life will for ever make him interesting; he might, and it is even probable that he might, have seen Xenophon dismount from some horse which he had stolen at Trebisond on his return from the Persian expedition; and he might have seen Alexander mount for Chæronea. Alexander was present at that battle, and personally joined in a charge of cavalry. It is not impossible that he may have ridden Bucephalus.

NOTE 10. Page 164.

'Is exalted.' - The logic of Gibbon may seem defective. Why should it exalt our sense of human dignity - that Isocrates was the youthful companion of Plato or Euripides, and the aged companion of Demosthenes? It ought, therefore, to be mentioned, that, in the sentence preceding, he had spoken of Athens as a city that condensed, within the period of a single life, the genius of ages and millions.' The condensation is the measure of the dignity; and Isocrates, as the 'single life' alluded to, is the measure of the condensation. That is the logic. By the way, Gibbon ought always to be cited by the chapter- the page and volume of course evanesce with many forms of publication, whilst the chapter is always available; and, in the commonest form of twelve volumes, becomes useful in a second function, as a guide to the par

ticular volume; for six chapters, with hardly any exception, (if any,) are thrown into each volume. Consequently, the 40th chapter, standing in the seventh series of sixes, indicates the seventh volume.

NOTE 11. Page 166.

Excepting fragmentary writers, and the contributors from various ages to the Greek Anthologies, (which, however, next after the scenic literature, offer the most interesting expressions of Greek household feeling,) we are not aware of having omitted in this rapid review any one name that could be fancied to be a weighty name, excepting that of Lycophron. Of him we will say a word or two: The work, by which he is known, is a monologue or dramatic scene from the mouth of one single speaker; this speaker is Cassandra the prophetic daughter of Priam. In about one thousand five hundred Iambic lines (the ordinary length of a Greek tragedy), she pours forth a dark prophecy with respect to all the heroes engaged in the Trojan war, typifying their various unhappy catastrophes by symbolic images, which would naturally be intelligible enough to us who know their several histories, but which (from the particular selection of accidents or circumstances used for the designation of the persons) read like riddles without the aid of a commentator. This prophetic gloom, and the impassioned character of the many woes arising notoriously to the conquerors as well as the conquered in the sequel of the memorable war, give a coloring of dark power to the Cassandra of Lycophron. Else we confess to the fact of not having examined the poem attentively. We read it in the year 1809, having been told that it was the most difficult book in the Greek language. This is the popular impression, but a very false one. It is not difficult at all as respects the language: (allowing for a few peculiar Lycophrontic words,) the difficulty lies in the allusions, which are intentionally obscure.

NOTE 12. Page 169.

'Not easily met with.' - From Germany we have seen reprints of some eight or nine; but once only, so far as our

bibliography extends, were the whole body published collectively. This was at the Aldine press in Venice, more than three centuries ago. Such an interval, and so solitary a publication, sufficiently explain the non-familiarity of modern scholars with this section of Greek literature.

NOTE 13. Page 178.

People will here remind us that Aristotle was half a foreigner, being born at Stagyra in Macedon. Ay, but amongst Athenian emigrants, and of an Athenian father. His mother, we think, was Thracian. The crossing of races almost uniformly terminates in producing splendor, at any rate energy, of intellect. If the roll of great men, or at least of energetic men, in Christendom, were carefully examined, it would astonish us to observe how many have been the children of mixed marriages; i. e., of alliances between two bloods as to nation, although the races might originally have been the same.

NOTE 14. Page 179.

It is well to give unity to our grandest remembrances, by connecting them, as many as can be, with the same centre. Pericles died in the year 429 before Christ. Supposing his age to be fifty-six, he would then be born about 485 B. C., that is, five years after the first Persian invasion under Darius, five years before the second under Xerxes.

NOTE 15. Page 203.

With respect to the word 'demagogues,' as a technical designation for the political orators and partisans at Athens, (otherwise called of лооотαтαι, those who headed any movement,) it is singular that so accurate a Greek scholar as Henry Stephens should have supposed linguas promptas ad plebem concitandum (an expression of Livy's) potius Twv dyuaywywv fuisse quàm των ξητωρων ; as if the demagogues were a separate class from the popular orators. But, says Valckenaer, the relation is soon stated: Not all the Athenian orators were demagogues; but all the demagogues were in fact, and technically were called, the Orators.

RHETORIC.*

No art, cultivated by man, has suffered more in the revolutions of taste and opinion than the art of rhetoric. There was a time when, by an undue extension of this term, it designated the whole cycle of accomplishments which prepared a man for public affairs. From that height it has descended to a level with the arts of alchemy and astrology, as holding out promises which consist in a mixed degree of impostures and of trifles. If we look into the prevailing theory of rhetoric, under which it meets with so degrading an estimate, we shall find that it fluctuates between two different conceptions, according to one of which it is an art of ostentatious ornament, and according to the other an art of sophistry. A man is held to play the rhetorician, when he treats a subject with more than usual gaiety of ornament; and perhaps we may add, as an essential element in the idea, with conscious ornament. This is one view of rhetoric; and, under this, what it accomplishes is not so much to persuade as to delight; not so much to win the assent, as to

* Whately's Elements of Rhetoric.

stimulate the attention, and captivate the taste. And even this purpose is attached to something separable and accidental in the manner.

to dash maturest appear the better

But the other idea of rhetoric lays its foundation in something essential to the matter. This is that rhetoric of which Milton spoke, as able counsels, and to make the worse reason.' Now it is clear, that argument of some quality or other must be taken as the principle of this rhetoric; for those must be immature counsels indeed that could be dashed by mere embellishments of manner, or by artifices of diction and arrangement.

Here then we have in popular use two separate ideas of rhetoric, one of which is occupied with the general end of the fine arts; that is to say, intellectual pleasure. The other applies itself more specifically to a definite purpose of utility.

Such is the popular idea of rhetoric, which wants both unity and precision. If we seek these from the formal teachers of rhetoric, our embarrassment is not much relieved. All of them agree that rhetoric máy be defined the art of persuasion. But if we inquire what is persuasion, we find them vague and indefinite, or even contradictory. To waive a thousand of others, Dr. Whately, in the work before us, insists upon the conviction of the understanding as an essential part of persuasion;' and, on the other hand, the author of the Philosophy of Rhetoric is equally satisfied that there is no persuasion without an appeal to the passions. Here are two views. We, for our parts, have

a third, which excludes both: where conviction begins, the field of rhetoric ends that is our opinion: and,