behaviour during the operation. Unluckily, there is no such drug discovered; but there is a potion which exalts our spirits, and kindles in the mind insolence, and imprudence, and lust, and every fiercer passion, while it lays open to view our ignorance, our avarice, and our cowardice. Why should we wait till these vices exert themselves into real action, and produce their several mischiefs in society; when, by a wellregulated use of this liquor, we might, without danger, discover them lurking in the disposition of youth, and suppress them even in their infancy?

DE LEGIBUS.

BOOK II.

HEADS OF THE SECOND DIALOGUE,

P. 653. The great purpose of a right education is to fix in the mind an early habit of associating its ideas of pleasure and of desire with its ideas of virtue, and those of pain and aversion with that of vice: so that reason, when it comes to maturity, (and happy are they with whom, even in their old age, it does come to maturity!) may look back with satisfaction, and may approve the useful prejudices instilled into the soul in its infancy.

The early inclination of children to noise and motion is noticed, which, when reduced to order and symmetry, produce harmony and grace, which are two pleasures known only to human kind. The origin of musick and of the dance.

P. 655. In what kind of imitation their true beauty

NOTES ON THE GREEK TEXT.

Ρ. 655. Ωσπερ οι χοροδιδασκαλοι.] I take the word ευχρους, applied to harmony, to be an affected term of art, then used by the musicians and connoisseurs, like those in the fifth book de Republ. p. 531. namely, Εξαρνησις, κατηγορία, αλαζονεια χορδων.

consists. Every sound, or movement, or attitude, which naturally accompanies and expresses any virtue, or any laudable endowment of mind and of body, is beautiful, as the contrary is deformed and unpleasing. The error of such as make pleasure the sole end of these arts.

Reasons for the diversity of men's taste and judgment in them are assigned. Some from having been early depraved, and little accustomed to what is lovely, come to approve and take delight in deformity: others applaud what is noble and graceful, but feel no pleasure from it, either because their mind has a natural depravity in it, though their education has been good, or because their principles are right, but their habits and practice have not been conformable to them. The danger of this last defect is stated, when men delight in what their judgment disapproves.

P. 657. The restraint, which ought to be laid on poets in all well-disciplined states, is named. Musicians in Egypt1 were confined by law, even from the remotest antiquity, to certain simple species of melody, and the painters and sculptors to some peculiar stand

1 Σκοπων δ ̓ ἑυρησεις αυτοθι τα μυριοστον ετος γεγραμμενα η τετυπωμενα, (ουκ, ὡς επος ειπειν, μυριοστον ετος, αλλ' οντως) των νυν δεδημιουργημένων ουτε καλλιονα, ουτε αισχιω, την αυτην δε τεχνην απειργασμένα. This will account for the little improvement the Egyptians ever made in the fine arts, though they were perhaps the inventors of them: for undoubtedly the advancement and perfection of these things, as well as their corruption, are entirely owing to liberty and innovation.

NOTE.

P. 655. Ta μev apeтns exoμeva.] Vid. de Republ. L. 3. The opinion of Damon the musician.

ards for their measures and attitudes, from which they were not to deviate.

P. 658. A reflection on the usual wrong determinations of the persons appointed to judge of their musical and poetical entertainments at Athens, who (though they took an oath to decide impartially) were biassed, either through fear or from the affectation of popularity, by the opinion of the crowd; whereas they ought to have considered themselves as masters and directors of the publick taste. From this weakness arose the corruption of their theatrical entertainments. In Italy and in Sicily the victory was adjudged by the whole audience to that poet, who had the greatest number of hands held up for him.

P. 659. The manners, exhibited in a drama to the people, ought always to be better than their own.

P. 661. The morality inculcated by the poets, even in Sparta and in Crete, where all innovations were by law forbidden, was defective enough. What sentiments

NOTES.

P. 658. It is here said, that puppet-shews and jugglers' tricks are best accommodated to the taste of young children; as comedy is to that of bigger boys, tragedy to that of the young men, and of the women of the better sort, and of the bulk of the people in general, and the rhapsodi to that of the older and wiser sort.

Ib. Κινυρα τε.] The verses of Tyrtæus, here alluded to, are these:

Ουδ' ει Τιθωνοιο φυην χαριεστερος είη,

Πλουτοιη τε Μιδεω και Κινυραο πλεον.

See also Phædrum, p. 269.

661. Tylaiveiv.] An allusion to an ancient song. See Gorgias, p. 451.

they ought to inspire. Plato's1 great principles are explained, namely, that happiness is inseparable from virtue and misery from wickedness, and that the latter is rather an error of the judgment than of the will.

P. 663. If these opinions were actually false, (as they are immutably founded on truth) yet a wise lawgiver would think himself obliged to inculcate them, as true, by every method possible.

It is easy to persuade men, even of the most absurd fiction; how much more of an undoubted truth?

P. 664. The institution of the three chorusses, which are to repeat in verse (accompanied with musick and with dances) these great principles of society, and to fix them in the belief of the publick: the first chorus is composed of boys under eighteen, and sacred to the Muses; the second, from that age to thirty, and sacred to Apollo; the third, to Bacchus, consisting of all from thirty to sixty years of age.

P. 666. The use of wine is forbidden to boys; it is

1 V. Alcibiad. 2. p. 144. Aristotle looked upon this as the distinguishing part of his master Plato's doctrine, as we see from a fragment of his elegy to Eudemus, preserved in Olympiodorus's commentary on the Gorgias. See also de Legib. L. 5. p. 733 and 742.

NOTES.

P.663. To Tov Zidwviov.] This fable of Cadmus and the dragon's teeth was firmly believed at Thebes: the principal families were supposed to be descended from the five persons who survived the fight and bore on their bodies (as it was reported) the mark of a lance, as a proof of their origin. They were called Σπαρτοι, και Γηγενεις. (See Eurip. Hercules Furens, v. 794. and Barnes ad locum.)