P. III. Efforts of the Perfians, and that again two fucceffive Invaders, DARIUS an XERXES, they may be confidered as a the fummit of their national Glory. Fo more than half a century afterwards they maintained, without controul, the Sove reignty of Greece*. As their Tafte was naturally good, Art of every kind foon rofe among them, and flourished. Valour had given them Re putation; Reputation gave them an Afcen dant; and that Afcendant produced a Se curity, which left their minds at ease and gave them leifure to cultivate every thing liberal, or elegant †. 'TWA * For these Hiflorical Facts confult the antient and modern Authors of Grecian Hiftory. 'Twas in a fimilar period of Triumph, after : formidable Adverfary had been crushed, that the Ro mans began to cultivate a more refined and polifhed Literature. --pol 'Twas then that PERICLES adorned the Ch.III. City with Temples, Theatres, and other beautiful public Buildings. PHIDIAS, the great Sculptor, was employed as his Architect, who, when he had erected Edifices, adorned them himself, and added Statues and Baffo-relievo's, the admiration of every beholder *. 'Twas then that POLYGNOTUS and MYRO painted; that SOPHOCLES and EURIPIDES wrote; and not long after, that they faw the divine SOCRATES. HUMAN affairs are by nature prone to change, and states as well as individuals poft Punica bella QUIETUS, querere cœpit, Quid Sophocles, et Thefpis, et Æschylus utile ferrent. Horat. Ep. II. L. II. v. 162. See the Note from a Greek MS. fubjoined to the third Edition of my First Volume, p. 361, where the Progress of Arts and Sciences, from their Dawn to their Meridian, is elegantly and philofophically exhi bited. * See Plutarch's Life of Pericles, p. 350, 351, 352, 353, 354. in the Quarto Greek Edition of Bryan, Vol. I. and Stuart's Antiquities of Athens. S are P. III. are born to decay. Jealoufy and Ambition infenfibly fomented wars, and Succefs in thefe wars, as in others, was often various. The military ftrength of the ATHENIANS was first impaired by the LACEDÆMONIANS; after that, it was again humiliated, under EPAMINONDAS, by the Thebans ; and laft of all it was wholly crushed by the Macedonian, PHILIP*. BUT tho' their political Sovereignty was loft, yet, happily for Mankind, their Love of LITERATURE and ARTS did not fink along with it. JUST at the clofe of their Golden Days of Empire flourished XENOPHON and PLATo, the difciples of SOCRATES, and from Plato defcended that Race of Philofophers, called the old Academy †. See, as before, the feveral Hiftories of Greece ↑ See Cic. de Fin. L. V. and Academ. L. I. f. 35. p. 21. Edit. Divifii. ARISTOTLE, who was Plato's difciple, Ch.III. may be faid, not to have invented a new Philofophy, but rather to have tempered the fublime, and rapturous mysteries of his master with Method, Order, and a ftricter Mode of reafoning*. ZENO, who was himself alfo educated in the principles of Platonism, only differed from Plato in the comparative Estimate of things, allowing nothing to be intrinfically good but VIRTUE, nothing intrinfically bad but VICE, and confidering all other things to be in themfelves indif ferent t. He too and Ariftotle accurately cultivated Logic, but in different ways; for *See Hermes, p. 421. +See Cicer. de Fin. L. III. f. 7. 8. 16.- the be ginning of the Enchiridion of Epidetus, Τῶν ὅπλων τα Mèr 10' nμiv, x. T. λ. Diogen. Laert. in vitâ Zenon. L. VII. f. 102. S 2 Ariftotle P. III. Ariftotle chiefly dwelt upon the fimpl Syllogifm; Zeno upon that which is de rived out of it, the Compound or Hypothe tic. Both too, as well as other Philo fophers, cultivated Rhetoric along wit Logic; holding a knowlege in both to b requifite for those, who think of addref ing mankind with all the efficacy of Per fuafion. ZENO elegantly illuftrated th force of these two powers by a Simil taken from the Hand: the clofe power o Logic he compared to the Fift, or Har compreft; the diffufe power of Logic, the Palm, or Hand open I fha * ZENO quidem ille, a quo difciplina Stoicorum MANU demonftrare folebat, quid inter has artes [Diale ticam fcil. et Eloquentiam] intereffet. Nam, cum co preferat digitos, PUGNUM que fecerat, DIALECTICA aiebat ejufmodi effe: cum autem diduxerat, et man dilataverat, PALMA illius fimilem ELOQUENTIAM dicebat. Cicer. Orator. f. 113. Both Peripatetics and Stoics wrote Tracts of Rheto as well as Logic. The RHETORIC of Ariftotle is p ha |