GREECE]

ARISTIPPUS. . - He had collected a considerable sum for a journey into Lybia. :) It being doublesome tohis slaye, be ordered him too easer himself of bis burthen, by throwing it on the road: He took a pleasure in setting the censurers of his conduct at variance with their maxims. One day: Polix. enes reproved him

Ayith some acrimony, for the luxyry of hisctable'; Aristippus invited ljim to supper, and became satisfied, that the surest way to silence those who condeminsour pleasures, is to make them partakers in, them, Dionysiusshewed; him three: beautiful equrtezans, / and desired; him to chuse which of them he pleased. He took all the three, saying, “it bad cost Paris tog dear, for þaving given a preference to one of the goddesses.” This

a. was a happy application of the fable; but 'hy, a

byvirtuous caprice, he sent them all three home again.. He was accustomed to say, “ that it was better to be poor than ignorant, because a little money was sufficient to relieve the poor, but the ignorant required great efforts to civilize them." He was the first philosopher who took payment for his lessons. He asked fifty drachmas from a father for instructing his son, “ With this sum," said the father, “ I could purchase a slave." Buy him then," said the philosopher," and you will have two." He only considered an intercourse with women so far as it related to voluptuouspess, and kept his heart free amidst the intoxication of his seoses. "I possess Laïs,” said he,

!!! “ but Laïs does not possess me.” He excused his fondness for good living, by saying, “that if it were blameable they would not inake such great feasts on the festivals of the gods."

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This philosopher, who flourished four hundred years before Christ, died in returning from the court of Syracuse to Cyrene. His works have not reached us. It

does not appear that the ancients held them in much estimation. It was a maxim with him, that the sagë ought to do every thing for himself. Such a sage does but reduce the most despicable egotism to a system. Epicurus made voluptuousness to consist in the sleep of the passions; Aristippus, in the satisfaction which agreeable sensations procure. He saw nothing in the world real or interesting, but his own existence. Horace sometimes yields homage to his philosophy. In his epistle

. to Mæcenas, he says, “Sometimes active and vigilant, I plunge myself into the whirlpool of business; sometimes a rigid partizan of virtue, I try to govern events, instead of suffering myself to be governed by them; sometimes, also, I enter, as it were by stealth, the school of Aristippus."

Ble party, or promote the benefit

It is a misfortune for a writer to have employed his talents in the service of factions which only interest us while they exist; to have calumniated illustrious characters, for whom we always feel; and to hạve ridiculed morality, which can never fail to command respect. The writings which political prejudices give birth to, the objects of controversy and enthusiasm, in proportion as they are obnoxious to , of another, whatever may be their merit, are but enigmas of a more distant date. It is therefore impossible for us to point out the allegorical personages of Aristophanes. How, shall we be able to discover in the comedy of the Birds, in that of Peace, and in that of the Knights, what afforded so much pleasure to the Athenians The reputation of Socrates directs our curiosity to the piece in which he attempted to degrade this extraordinary man ; in the perusal of which Aristophanes forfeits our esteem. The character of impiety, so manifest in his Plutus, induces us to consult him in order to judge of the degree of liberty enjoyed by the Greeks in religious matters; but, after one reading, we throw aside the greater part of the comedies of a writer who does not find a commentator in the history of the human heart, but in that of the troubles and dissentions of his republic.

It must, however, be admitted, that Aristophanes is eminent for wit, for vivacity, and invention ; that his dialogue is rapid ; that he adroitly delineates the caprice,