nary man whom he had met with, after long research, upon the banks of the Red Sea. Once in every year, this supernatural personage appeared to mortals and conversed with them; the rest of his time he passed among the Genii and the Nymphs. He spoke in a tone not far removed from singing, And whenever he opened his lips, a fragrance filled the place. from him Cleombrotus learned the doctrine of a plurality of worlds.

(72) The celebrated Janus Dousa, a little before his death, magined that he heard a strain of music in the air. See the poem of Heinsius, "In harmoniam quam paulo ante obitum audire sibi visus est Dousa." Page 501.

(73) Cham, the son of Noah, is supposed to have taken with him into the ark the principal doctrines of magical, or rather of natural science, which he had inscribed upon some very durable substances, in order that they might resist the ravages of the deluge, and transmit the secrets of antediluvian knowledge to his posterity. See the extracts made by Bayle, in his article, Cham. The identity of Cham and Zoroaster depends upon the authority of Berosus, (or rather the impostor Annius.) and a few more such respectable testimonies. See Naude`s Apologie pour les Grands Hommes, &c., chap. viii., where he takes more trouble than is necessary in refuting this gratuitous supposition.

(74) Chamum à posteris hujus artis admiratoribus Zoroastrum, seu vivum astrum, propterea fuisse dictum et pro Deo habitum.-Bochart. Geograph. Sacr. lib. iv. cap. 1.

(75) Orpheus.-Paulinus, in his Hebdomades, cap. 2, lib. iii., has endeavored to show, after the Platonists, that man is a diapason, or octave, made up of a diatesseron, which is his soul, and a diapente, which is his body. Those frequent allusions to music, by which the ancient philosophers illustrated their sublime theories, must have tended very much to elevate the character of the, art, and to enrich it with associations of the grandest and most interesting nature. See a preceding note, for their ideas upon the harmony of the spheres. Heraclitus compared the mixture of good and evil in this world to the blended varieties of harmony in a musical instrument, (Plutarch. de Animæ Procreat. ;) and Euryphanus, the Pythagorean, in a fragment preserved by Stobæus, describes human life, in its perfection, as a sweet and well-tuned lyre. Some of the ancients were so fanciful as to suppose that the operations of the memory were regulated by a kind of musical cadence, and that ideas occurred to it "per arsin et thesin," while others converted the whole man into a mere harmonized machine, whose motion depended upon a certain tension of the body, analogous to that of the strings in an instrument. Cicero indeed ridicules Aristoxenus for this fancy, and says, "Let him teach singing, and leave philosophy to Aristotle;" but Aristotle himself, though decidedly opposed to the harmonic speculations of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, could sometimes condescend to enliven his doctrines by reference to the beauties of musical science.

(76) Pythagoras is represented in Jamblichus as descending with great solemnity from Mount Carmel, for which reason the Carmelites have claimed him as one of their fraternity. This Mechus or Moschus, with the descendants of whom Pythagoras conversed in Phoenicia, and from whom he derived the doctrines of atomic philosophy, is supposed by some to be the same with Moses. Huett has adopted this idea, Démonstration Evangélique, Prop. iv. chap. 2, § 7; and Le Clerc, among others, has refuted it. See Biblioth. Choisie, tom. i. p. 75. It is certain, however, that the doctrine of atoms was known and promulgated long before Epicurus. "With the fountains of Democritus," says Cicero, "the gardens of Epicurus were watered;" and the learned author of the Intellectual System has shown, that all the early philosophers, till the time of Plato,

were atomists. We find Epicurus, however, boasting that his tenets were new and unborrowed, and perhaps few among the ancients had any stronger claim to originality. In truth, if we examine their schools of philosophy, notwithstanding the peculiarities which seem to distinguish them from each other, we may generally observe that the difference is but verbal and trifling; and that, among those various and learned heresies, there is scarcely one to be selected, whose opinions are its own, original and exclusive. The doctrine of the world's eternity may be traced through all the sects. The continual metempsychosis of Pythagoras, the grand periodic year of the Stoics, (at the conclusion of which the universe is supposed to return to its original order, and commence a new revolution,) the successive dissolution and combination of atoms maintained by the Epicureans-all these tenets are but different imita tions of the same general belief in the eternity of the world. As explained by St. Austin, the periodic year of the Stoics disagrees only so far with the idea of the Pythagoreans, that instead of an endless transmission of the soul through a variety of bodies, it restores the same body and soul to repeat their former round of existence, so that the "identical Plato, who lectured in the Academy of Athens, shall again and again, at certain intervals, during the lapse of eternity, appear in the same Academy and resume the same functions:" -sic eadem tempora temporaliumque rerum volumina repeti, ut v. g. sicut in isto sæculo Plato philosophus in urbe Atheniensi, in eâ scholâ quæ Academia dicta est, discipulos docuit, ita per innumerabilia retro sæcula, multum plexis quidem intervallis, sed certis, et idem Plato, et eadem civitas, eademque schola, iidemque discipuli repetiti et per innumerabilia deinde sæcula repetendi sint.-De Civitat. Dei, lib. xii. cap. 13. Vanini, in his dialogues, has given us a similar explication of the periodic revolutions of the world. "Eâ de causâ, qui nunc sunt in usu ritus, centies millies fuerunt, totiesque renascentur quoties ceciderunt." 52.

The paradoxical notions of the Stoics upon the beauty, the riches, the dominion of their imaginary sage, are among the most distinguishing characteristics of their school, and, according to their advocate Lipsius, were peculiar to that sect. "Priora illa (decreta) quæ passim in philosophantium scholis ferè obtinent, ista quæ peculiaria huic sectæ et habent contradictionem: i. e. paradoxa.”—Manuduct, ad Stoic. Philos. lib. iii. dissertat. 2. But it is evident (as the Abbe Garnier has remarked. Mémoires de l'Acad. tom. xxxv.) that even these absurdities of the Stoics are borrowed, and that Plato is the source of all their extravagant paradoxes. We find their dogma, "dives qui sapiens," (which Clement of Alexandria has transferred from the Philosopher to the Christian, Pædagog. lib. iii. cap. 6.) expressed in the prayer of Socrates at the end of the Phædrus. And many other instances might be adduced to prove that these weeds of paradox were all gathered among the bowers of the Academy. Hence it is that Cicero, in the preface to his Paradoxes, calls them Socratica; and Lipsius, exulting in the patronage of Socrates, says, "Ille totus est noster." This is indeed a coalition, which evinces as much as can be wished the confused similitude of ancient philosophical opinions; the father of skepticism is here enrolled among the founders of the Portico; he, whose best knowledge was that of his own ignorance, is called in to authorize the pretensions of the most obstinate dogmatists in all antiquity.

Rutilius, in his Itinerarium, has ridiculed the sabbath of the Jews, as "lassati mollis imago Dei ;" but Epicurus gave an eternal holiday to his gods, and, rather than disturb the slumbers of Olympus, denied at once the interference of a Providence. He does not, however, seem to have been singular in this opinion. Theophilus of Antioch, if he deserve any credit, imputes a similar belief to Pythagoras. And Plutarch, though so hostile to the followers of Epicurus, has unaccountably adopted the very same theological error.-De Placit. Philosoph. lib. i. cap. 7. Plato himself has attributed a degree of indifference to the gods, which is not far removed from the apathy of Epicurus's heaven; while Aristotle supposes a still more

absurd neutrality, and concludes, by no very flattering analogy, that the deity is as incapable of virtue as of vice.-Ethic. Nicomach. lib. vii. cap. 1. In truth, Aristotle, upon the subject of Providence, was little more correct than Epicurus. He sup posed the moon to be the limit of divine interierence, excluding, of course, this sublunary world from its influence. The first definition of the world, in his treatise H pt Koopov, (if this treatise be really the work of Aristotle,) agrees, almost verbum verbo, with that in the letter of Epicurus to Pythocles; and both omit the mention of a deity. In his Ethics, too, he intimates a doubt whether the gods feel any interest in the concerns of mankind.

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 accommodate all his fancies to their own 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 the Borgia of the Epigrammatist, et Cæsar et nihil." Not even the language of Seneca can reconcile this degradation of divinity "ille ipse omnium conditor ac rector scripsit quidem fata, sed sequitur; semper paret, semel jussit."-Lib de Providentiâ, 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, it appears a no less difficult matter to establish the boundaries of opinion between any two of the Philosophical sects, than it would be to fix the landmarks of those estates in the moon, which Ricciolus so generously allotted to his brother astronomers. 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 Academician, sometimes a Stoic; and, more than once, he acknowledges a conformity with Epicurus; "non sine causa igitur Epicurus ausus est dicere semper in pluribus bonis esse sapientem, quia semper sit in voluptatibus.”—Tusculan. Quæst. lib. v. Though often pure in his theology, Cicero sometimes smiles at futurity as a fiction; thus, in his Oration for Cluentius, speaking of punishments in the life to come, he says, "Quæ si falsa sunt, id quod omnes intelligunt, quid ei tandem aliud mors eripuit, præter sensum doloris ?"-though here we should, perhaps, do him but justice by agreeing with his commentator Sylvius, who remarks upon this passage," Hæc autem dixit, ut causæ suæ subserviret." The poet Horace roves like a butterfly through the schools, and now wings along the walls of the Porch, now basks among the flowers of the Garden; while Virgil, with a tone of mind strongly philosophical, has yet left us wholly uncertain as to the sect which he espoused. The balance of opinion declares him to have been 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 leading sects. The same kind of eclectic indifference is observable in most of the Roman writers. Thus Propertius, in the fine elegy to Cynthia, on his departure for Athens,

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

Lib. iii. Eleg. 21.

Though Broeckhusius here reads, "dux Epicure," which 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 among the ecclesiastical writers, while Boccaccio doubts (in consideration of his supposed correspondence with St. Paul) whether Dante should have placed him in limbo with the rest of the Pagans even the rigid Seneca has bestowed such commendations on Epicurus, that if only those passages of his works were preserved to us, we could not hesitate, I think, in pronouncing him a confirmed Epicurean. With similar inconsistency, 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 antici 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 Menaceus, are rational, amiable, and consistent with our nature. A late writer, 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," 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. To the factious zeal of his illiberal rivals, the Stoics, Epicurus chiefly owed these gross misrepresentations of the life and opinions 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 this philosopher with about the same degree of cautious belief which, in reading ecclesiastical history, we yield to the invectives of the fathers against the heretics,-trusting as little to Plutarch upon a dogma of Epicurus, as we would to the vehement 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 as well as more amusing than, I freely confess, they appear to me at present.

(77) 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 sectusque diffusam colligeret in unum, ac redigeret in corpus, is profecto non dissentiret a nobis.”— Inst. lib. vi. c. 7.

(78) This bold Platonic image I have taken from a passage in Father Bouchet's letter upon the Metempsychosis, inserted in Picart's Cérém. Relig. tom. iv.

(79) According to Pythagoras, the people of Dreams are souls collected together in the Galaxy.-Porphyr. de Antro Nymph.

(80) Mamurra, a dogmatic philosopher, who never doubted about any thing, except who was his father." Nullà de re unquam præterquam de patre dubitavit."-In Vit. He was very learned-Là-dedans, (that is, in his head when it was opened,) le Punique heurte le Persan, l'Hébreu choque l'Arabique, pour ne point parler de la mauvaise intelligence du Latin avec le Grec," &c.-See L'Histoire de Montmaur, tom. ii. p. 91.

(81) Bombastus was one of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus.—“ Philippus Bombastus latet sub splendido tegmine Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi," says Stadelius de

circumforaneâ Literatorum vanitate.-He used to fight the devil every night with a broadsword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance. (Vide Oporin. Vit. apud Christian. Gryph. Vit. Select. quorundam Eruditissimorum, &c.) Paracelsus had but a poor opinion of Galen :-" My very beard (says he in his Paragrænum) has more learning in it than either Galen or Avicenna."

(82) The angel, who scolded St. Jerome for reading Cicero, as Gratian tells the story in his "Concordantia discordantium Canonum," and says, that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the Classics: "Episcopus Gentilium libros non legat.”—Distinct. 37. But Gratian is notorious for lyingbesides, angels, as the illustrious pupil of Pantenus assures us, have got no tongues.-Clem. Alexand. Stromat.

(83) The idea of the Rabbins, respecting the origin of woman, is not a little singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage, and made woman of it. Upon this extraordinary supposition the following reflection is founded:

If such is the tie between women and men,
The ninny who weds is a pitiful elf,

For he takes to his tail like an idiot again,
And thus makes a deplorable ape of himself.

Yet, if we may judge as the fashions prevail,
Every husband remembers th' original plan,
And, knowing his wife is no more than his tail,

Why he leaves her behind him as much as he can.

(84) Scaliger. de Emendat. Tempor.-Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry. See Jacques Gaffarel, (Curiosités Inouïes, chap. i.,) who says he thinks this story of the sea-monster "carries little show of probability with it."

(85) I wish it were known with any degree of certainty whether the Commentary on Boethius attributed to Thomas Aquinas be really the work of this Angelic Doctor. There are some bold assertions hazarded in it: for instance, he says that Plato kept school in a town called Academia, and that Alcibiades was a very beautiful woman whom some of Aristotle's pupils fell in love with:-" Alcibiades mulier fuit pulcherrima, quam videntes quidam discipuli Aristotelis," &c.— See Freytag Adparat. Litterar. art. 86, tom. i.

(86) The following compliment was paid to Laurentius Valla, upon his accurate knowledge of the Latin language:—

Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit,
Non audet Pluto verba Latina loqui.
Since Val arrived in Pluto's shade,

His nouns and pronouns all so pat in,
Pluto himself would be afraid

To say his soul's his own, in Latin!

See for these lines the "Auctorum Censio" of Du Verdier, (page 29.)

(87) It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar enough to laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek. "Master Joachim (says he) has sent me some dates and some raisins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too may have the pleasure of reading what he does not understand." "Græca sunt, legi non possunt," is the ignorant speech attributed to Accursius; but very unjustly:-for, far from asserting that Greek could not be read, that worthy juris-consult upon the Law 6. D. de Bonor. Possess. expressly says, "Græcæ literææ possunt intelligi et legi." (Vide Nov. Libror. Rarior. Collection. Fascic. IV.)-Scipio Carteromachus seems to have been of opinion that there is no salvation out of the pale of Greek Literature: "Via prima salutis Graià pandetur ab urbe;" and the zeal of Laurentius Rhodomannus cannot be sufficiently admired, when he exhorts his countrymen,

per gloriam Christi, per salutem patriæ, per reipublicæ decus et emolumentum," to study the Greek language. Nor must we forget Phavorinus, the excellent Bishop of Nocera, who, careless of all the usual commendations of a Christian, required no further eulogium on his tomb than "Here lieth a Greek Lexicographer."

(88) 'O'ravv.-The introduction of this language into English poetry has had a good effect, and ought to be more universally adopted. A word or two of Greek in a stanza would serve as ballast to the most "light o' love" verses. Ausonius, among the ancients, may serve as a model. Ronsard, the French poet, has enriched his sonnets and odes with many an excellent morsel from the Lexicon. His "chère Eutelechie," in addressing his mistress, can only be equalled by Cowley's "Antiperistasis."

(89) Or Glass-Breaker.-Morhofius has given an account of this extraordinary man, in a work, published 1682,- De vitreo scypho fracto," &c.

(90) Translated almost literally from a passage in Albertus de Secretis, &c.

(91) Alluding to that habitual act of the judgment, by which, notwithstanding the inversion of the image upon the retina, a correct impression of the object is conveyed to the sensorium.

(92) Under this description, I believe "the Devil among the Scholars" may be included. Yet Leibnitz found out the uses of incomprehensibility, when he was appointed secretary to a society of philosophers at Nuremberg, chiefly for his ingenuity in writing a cabalistical letter, not one word of which either they or himself could interpret. See the Eloge Historique de M. de Leibnitz, l'Europe Savante.-People in all ages have loved to be puzzled. We find Cicero thanking Atticus for having sent him a work of Serapion "ex quo (says he) quidem ego (quod inter nos liceat dicere) millesimam partem vix intelligo." Lib. ii. epist. 4. And we know that Avicenna, the learned Arabian, read Aristotle's Metaphysics forty times over for the mere pleasure of being able to inform the world that he could not comprehend one syllable throughout them. (Nicolas Massa in Vit. Avicen.)