70 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



sketched. Von Ast, indeed, considers the characters Megillus, the 

 Athenian stranger, &c., as fictitious ; but we see no reason for sup- 

 posing that they may not have been real personages, and that a further 

 development would have been given to these points, and a general 

 proem prefixed, if the work had received the last touches of the 

 author's hand. The other arguments of Von Ast relating to the 

 4 Books of Laws,' originate, we think, in a misapprehension of Plato's 

 object in his ' Commonwealth;' the direct object of which was, as we 

 before observed, of a moral nature, and the political discussions only 

 elucidatory. In a commonwealth, where the individuals had by edu- 

 cation been disciplined to a high state of moral perfection, many details 

 might be impertinent or irrelevant, which would not only find their 

 place, but would be absolutely necessary in a political treatise of a 

 practical nature, and in framing a code of laws to be used by men, con- 

 stituted as men are, and not such as they might be fancied to become. 

 The notion that the ' Books of Laws,' whoever they were written by, 

 were intended by the author as supplemental, and to be accommodcited 

 to the inhabitants of Plato's ideal commonwealth, is surely not only a 

 gross mistake of the nature of that commonwealth, but a perversion 

 of the object of the * Books of Laws,' as declared and explained by the 

 author himself. 



Such are our reasons for considering these dialogues genuine, though 

 doubted or rejected by Mr. Von Ast. And, in our opinions of the 

 object and turn of several of these dialogues, we are sensible that we 

 trench very much upon a certain formal definition, which a writer 1 of 

 most fastidious taste and timid genius has laid down for the ancient 

 philosophic dialogue, This learned and scrupulous critic defines it to 

 be, " an imitated and mannered conversation between certain real, 

 known, and respected persons, on some useful or serious subject, in an 

 elegant and suitably adorned, but not characteristic style." And the 

 same author attributes to the Promethean genius of Lucian, the " crea- 

 tion of a new species, the merit of which consists in associating two 

 things not naturally allied together, the severity of the philosophic 

 dialogue, with the humour of the comic." That the ancient dialogue 

 was not always on serious subjects, and not always in a style not 

 characteristic of the speakers, will perhaps be sufficiently obvious to 

 any one who studies ' The Banquet,' which is admitted on all hands 

 to be a genuine production of Plato. The characters of the style of 

 the different speakers are there preserved in the closest manner, and 

 were always so understood by the ancients ; and, in one place, to set 

 out the buffoon Aristophanes to the very life, his wild rambling wit 

 is thrown into strong relief by preliminary incidents of the most ludi- 

 crous nature ; for Plato was bent, says Athenseus, 2 upon comedizing 



1 See Kurd's Preface to his Moral and Political Dialogues, p. 53, 4th edition. 



2 nxT;va & TOV (iiv vvro TOV Xvyyos o^Xouf^ivov xa.} 6ifa,--nvof<.ivov oLv 

 tffiara;' tv $t TUIS vtfoGviXKis rou xupQous, "va T;y pTvet. xivfiffas rrufn vrnffafu 

 ya,^ jjVtAs, x. T. X. Deipnosop. lib. v. vol. i. p. 187. Ed. Causabon. 



