it8 ANTIENT metaphysics. Book II. 



As I am engaged thus far in fpeculatlons concerning Virtue, I think 

 it will not be improper to explain more particularly in what the 

 Beauty of Virtue confifts, and to enlarge upon thofe connedions and 

 relations of things which make Virtue a Syftem. 



Every virtuous adion, and, indeed, every adion, muft ftand in 

 fome relation, either to the Agent, to Others, or to God and Nature, 

 that is, the Whole of Things. 



With 



This not only (hows that his Lordfh^p had not read Ariftoile's Thyfics, Meiaphyftct, and 

 other works of abHrufe or efoterk philofopljy, as he calls it, but not all his popular works, 

 and particularly his ilfsra/f. And it is really furprifing that his Lordlhip had not fo 

 much as heard that he was the inventor of Logic, and that he was alfo the firft. that re- 

 duced DialeS}ic, which, I fuppofe, his Lordftiip means by the word Ditkd, to an Art. — 

 In (hort, it does not appear to me, that my Lord had read any of the numerous works 

 of Ariftotle, except that mutilated fragment, the Poetics, which he quotes frequently, 

 but never mentions another work of his, upon a popular art likewife, and which, I 

 think, of much greater value than the Poetics, if for no other reafon, than that it ii 

 complete, and the MS. of it more corredl, I think, than of any other of Ariftotle's 

 works ; the art I mean is Rhetoric, upon which Ariftotle has written three excellent 

 books. — As to Plato, he was more converfant in him : But he does not appear to me to 

 hape entered deep even into his philofophy, but to have ftudied only fome of the eaficll 

 and mod popular Dialogues, fuch as the Aicibiailes ift and zd •, but, as he was a man of 

 excellent tafte, he has catched the beauties of Plato's ftyle, better, I think, than any 

 writer in Englifli. His Rhapfody is, in my judgment, the beft philofophical Drama that 

 has been written fmce the days of Plato ; in which, befides its beauties of the Poetical 

 kind, there is a very great deal of fublime philofophy. There is alfo another antient 

 Author whom he has imitated very fuccefsfully, I mean Horace in his Satires and E- 

 piftles ; for, like him, he has introduced into his writings, even fuch as are not profefled 

 Dialogues like his Rhapfody, Perfonages, and Charadlers, whom he has made to con- 

 verfe in the moft pleufant and gentleman-like, familiar ftyle, that is to be found any 

 where ; and, in this way, he has varied and embellifhed his compofition very much : 

 And, though I am an admirer likewife of his high ftyle, yet I think his familiar much 

 better of the kind. The fame is the judgment of the Halicarnaffian with refpeft to Pla- 

 to's familiar Style of Socralic Dialogue, compared with his high, or Dithyrambic ftyle, 

 as the HalicarnallJan calls it. 



As to thofe of modern times, who pretend to write Philofophy without the afliftance 

 .of either Antient Philofophy, or Antient learning; I cannot help faying, though I 

 fliould give offence, that I think their works defpicable, both for Matter and Style. 



