PLATO. 55 



represent the style and doctrines of that ingenious and eloquent 

 declaimer in contrast with those of Socrates. The dialogue, though 

 intending an exposure of the artifices of rhetoric, and of the trickery 

 of exterior pomp, is written in a grave and dignified style ; and the 

 poetical imagery with which it is ennobled is of the highest cast. It 

 is altogether one of the most elegant of Plato's dialogues ; and a more 

 plausible or beautiful harangue cannot be imagined than the fine 

 speech delivered by Protagoras, It is a masterpiece of the kind. But 

 the lordly declaimer is much embarrassed by the close mode of combat 

 practised by Socrates ; and, the first moment he can disengage him- 

 self, expatiates afresh in that amplitude of discourse where the colour- 

 ings of the imagination can be best used to dazzle and delude, and in 

 which ingenious hypothesis and splendid illustrations may be sub- 

 stituted for proofs with the greatest chance of success. For an outline 

 of this dialogue, sketched by the hand of a master, we would beg to 

 refer our English readers to Mr. Gray's posthumous works, published 

 by Mr. Matthias ; l and we only regret that our limits will not permit 

 us to insert an abstract, which is at once so just in the statement of the 

 arguments, and gives such fine glimpses of the original in the colour of 

 the diction. 



Another circumstance which makes it probable that these dialogues 

 were written at that period of Plato's life is, that the poetical splen- 

 dour with which they abound is rather of a mythological than a meta- 

 physical cast. They are entirely destitute not merely of the subtilties 

 and of the refined discussions which appear in some of the other 

 productions of Plato, but of those grand and noble reveries into which 

 his soul at a maturer age delighted to throw itself, when he had 

 refuted the Sceptics by a logic of his own, still more subtle than 

 theirs, and when his own system of intellectual existences had been 

 formed and completed. The poetry in these dialogues, on the 

 contrary, is rather popular than philosophical. 



Soon after the death of Socrates, Plato retired to Megara ; and it is Retires to 

 generally believed that he there composed those three simple and Megara - 

 beautiful dialogues connected with the fate of his master ; * The De- 

 fence,' ' The Crito,' and ' The Pha?do.' The dramatic parts of these 

 dialogues, and particularly that of ' The Phaedo,' abound with pathetic The Phado. 

 touches ; and there is such an air of nature throughout, that the reader 

 is impressed with a share of the author's sensibility, and is at once 

 present and interested in the scene described. The last conversation 

 of the great patriarch of Grecian philosophy is recorded by his affec- 

 tionate pupil with every circumstance which can indicate the writer's 

 devoted veneration and deep regret, or which can conciliate the 

 reader's esteem and admiration. The plain integrity, the cheerful and 

 even playful temper, the genuine intrepidity of Socrates on the eve 

 of death, are so simply and forcibly represented, that we feel that 

 whether imagination or memory supplied the particulars of the conver- 

 1 In quarto, 1814, vol. ii. p. 387. 



