And bright through every change!—he spoke of

Him,

The lone,† Eternal One, who dwells above,

των ανθρωπινων ὑπο θεων γίνεται. It is true, he adds, Ώσπερ δοκει, but even this is very sceptical.

In these erroneous conceptions of Aristotle, we trace the cause of that general neglect, which his philosophy experienced among the early Christians. PLATO is seldom much more orthodox, but the obscure enthusiasm of his style allowed them to interpret all his fancies to their purpose; such glowing steel was easily moulded, and Platonism became a sword in the hands of the fathers.

The Providence of the Stoics, so vaunted in their school, was a power as contemptibly inefficient as the rest. All was fate in the system of the Portico. The chains of destiny were thrown over Jupiter himself, and their deity was like Borgia et Cæsar et nihil. Not even the language of SENECA can reconcile this degradation of divinity: "Ille ipse omnium conditor ac rector scripsit quidam fata, sed sequitur; semper paret, semel jussit."-Lib. de Providentia, cap. 5.

With respect to the difference between the Stoics, Peripatetics, and Academicians, the following words of CICERO prove that he saw but little to distinguish them from each other: "Peripateticos et Academicos, nominibus differentes, re congruentes; a quibus Stoici ipsi verbis magis quam sententiis dissenserunt."-Academic. lib. ii. 5. and perhaps what REID has remarked upon one of their points of controversy might be applied as effectually to the reconcilement of all the rest: "The dispute between the Stoics and Peripatetics was probably all for want of definition. The one said they were good under the control of reason, the other that they should be eradicated."—Essays, vol. iii. In short, from the little which I know upon the subject, it appears to me as difficult to establish the boundaries of opi

And of the soul's untraceable descent

From that high fount of spirit, through the grades

nion between any two of the philosophical sects, as it
would be to fix the land-marks of those estates in the moon,
which Ricciolus so generously allotted to his brother astro-
nomers. Accordingly we observe some of the greatest men
of antiquity passing without scruple from school to school,
according to the fancy or convenience of the moment. CICERO,
the father of Roman philosophy, is sometimes an Academi-
cian, sometimes a Stoic; and, more than once, he acknow-
ledges a conformity with Epicurus; non sine causa igitur,
Epicurus ausus est dicere semper in pluribus bonis esse sa-
pientem, quia semper sit in voluptatibus."-Tusculan. Quæst.
lib. v. Though often pure in his theology, he sometimes
smiles at futurity as a fiction; thus, in his Oration for Cluen-
tius, speaking of punishments in the life to come, he says,
"Quæ si falsa sunt, id quod omnes intelligunt, quid ei tan-
dem aliud mors eripuit, præter sensum doloris ?" though
here perhaps we should do him justice by agreeing with his
commentator SYLVIUS, who remarks upon this passage,
autem dixit, ut causæ suæ subserviret." Horace roves like a
butterfly through the schools, and now wings along the walls
of the Porch, and now basks among the flowers of the Gar-
den; while Virgil, with a tone of mind strongly philosophical,
has left us uncertain of the sect which he espoused: the ba-
lance of opinion declares him an Epicurean, but the ancient
author of his life asserts that he was an Academician, and
we trace through his poetry the tenets of almost all the lead-
ing sects. The same kind of electric indifference is observ-
able in most of the Roman writers. Thus PROPERTIUS, in the
fine Elegy of Cynthia, on his departure for Athens,

Illic vel studiis animum emendare Platonis,
Incipiam, aut hortis, docte Epicure, tuis.

Lib. iii. cleg. 21.

"Hæc

Of intellectual being, till it mix

With atoms vague, corruptible, and dark ;

" which

Though Broukhusius here reads, “dux Epicure, seems to fix the poet under the banners of Epicurus. Even the Stoic Seneca, whose doctrines have been considered so orthodox that St. Jerome has ranked him amongst the ecclesiastical writers, and Boccaccio, in his commentary upon Dante has doubted (in consideration of the philosopher's supposed correspondence with St. Paul), whether Dante should have placed him in Limbo with the rest of the Pagans-the rigid Seneca has bestowed such commendations on Epicurus, that if only those passages of his works were preserved to us, we could not, I think, hesitate in pronouncing him an Epicurean. In the same manner we find Porphyry, in his work upon abstinence, referring to Epicurus as an example of the most strict Pythagorean temperance; and LANCELOTTI, the author of Farfalloni degli antichi Istorici, has been seduced by this grave reputation of Epicurus into the absurd error of associating him with Chrysippus, as a chief of the Stoic school. There is no doubt, indeed, that however the Epicurean sect might have relaxed from its original purity, the morals of its founder were as correct as those of any among the ancient philosophers, and his doctrines upon pleasure, as explained in the letter to Menoceus, are rational, amiable, and consistent with our nature. M. de SABLONS, in his Grands Hommes vengés, expresses strong indignation against the Encyclopédistes for their just and animated praises of Epicurus, and discussing the question, “ si ce philosophe était vertueux,” he denies it upon no other authority than the calumnies collected by Plutarch, who himself confesses that, on this particular subject, he consulted only opinion and report, without pausing to investigate their truth. Αλλα την δόξαν, ου την αληθείαν σκοπουμην. Το the factious zeal of his illiberal rivals the Stoics, Epicurus owed these gross misrepresentations of the life and opinions

Nor even then, though sunk in earthly dross,
Corrupted all, nor its ethereal touch

Quite lost, but tasting of the fountain still!

As some bright river, which has roll'd along
Through meads of flowery light and mines of gold,
When pour'd at length into the dusky deep,
Disdains to mingle with its briny taint,
But keeps awhile the pure and golden tinge,
The balmy freshness of the fields it left! §

of himself and his associates, which, notwithstanding the learned exertions of Gassendi, have still left an odium on the name of his philosophy; and we ought to examine the ancient accounts of Epicurus with the same degree of cautious belief which, in reading ecclesiastical history, we yield to the declamations of the fathers against the heretics; trusting as little to Plutarch upon a dogma of this philosopher, as we would to St. Cyril upon a tenet of Nestorius. (1801.)

The preceding remarks, I wish the reader to observe, were written at a time when I thought the studies to which they refer much more important and much more amusing than, I freely confess, they appear to me at present.

* LACTANTIUS asserts that all the truths of Christianity may be found dispersed through the ancient philosophical sects, and that any one who would collect these scattered fragments of orthodoxy, might form a code in no respect differing from that of the Christian. "Si extitisset aliquis, qui veritatem sparsam per singulos per sectasque diffusam colligeret in unum, ac redigeret in corpus, is profecto non dissentiret a nobis."―Inst. lib. vi. c. 7.

+ Το μόνον και ερημον.

§ This fine Platonic image I have taken from a passage in Father Bouchet's letter upon the Metempsychosis, inserted in PICART'S Cérém. Relig. tom. iv.

And here the old man ceased-a winged train Of nymphs and genii led him from our eyes. The fair illusion fled! and, as I waked, I knew my visionary soul had been Among that people of aerial dreams Who live upon the burning galaxy!*

ΤΟ

THE world had just begun to steal
Each hope that led me lightly on,
I felt not as I used to feel,

And life grew dark and love was gone!.

No eye to mingle sorrow's tear,

No lip to mingle pleasure's breatlı, No tongue to call me kind and dear— "Twas gloomy, and I wish'd for death!

But when I saw that gentle eye,

Oh! something seem'd to tell me then That I was yet too young to die,

And hope and bliss might bloom again !

According to Pythagoras, the people of Dreams are souls collected together in the Galaxy. Δημος δε ονείρων, κατα Πυθαγόραν, αι ψυχαι ὡς συναγεσθαι φησιν εις τον γαλažiav. PORPHYR. de Antro Nymph,