A sweet and cooling breeze generally breathed along the shade, and great numbers of cicada, taking shelter from the sun, resorted to the coverts, and made an agreeable kind of natural music with their little notes, which seldom ceased. Plato adds several other agreeable heightenings of the scene, where moral and philosophical beauty was taught to emulate the surrounding beauties of nature. The language of Plato adds charms to the whole, as variegated colours illuminate and embellish the plain sketches of the chalk or penciled outline.

It is no wonder that philosophy, recommended by such graces as these, was found to render her votaries enamoured. Virtue and public spirit can scarcely ever want their admirers and followers, when they are decorated in a manner which sets off their own loveliness to the greatest advantage. It is to be lamented, for the sake of virtue, that lord Shaftsbury was a sceptic. His style was a fine imitation of Plato, and displays such beauties as might conceal the ugliness of a deformed system. Mr. Harris has also exhibited the Platonic graces in high perfection; and I cannot help considering it as a mark of defective taste that he is not more popular. His style appears to be one of the most elegant, classical, and judiciously ornamented among all the English writers of the present century. They who have raised their taste so as to perceive its beauties, will consider the style of many writers whom they once admired, as comparatively barbarous. He who never tasted the pine-apple, the peach, and the nectarine, may probably suppose that he enjoys the most exquisite flavour of the fruit-garden, while he is feasting on a

pippin; as he, who never partook of the pippin, may devour a crab, and admire it as a delicacy.

A critic of antiquity, Dionysius the Halicarnassian, has discovered many and great faults in the style of Plato. He seems to think the epithets too poetical, the metaphors too bold, the matter too allegorical. Pompey the Great disputed the point with him; and there is a curious letter extant on the subject, from the critic to the statesman. It is, indeed, obvious to remark, that though Plato would not admit Homer into his republic, he has admitted many of his beauties into his style; and has often written with an enthusiastic warmth, which they, who have not partaken of the afflatus to which he somewhere pretended, cannot entirely approve. A cold critic, like Dionysius, would naturally be disgusted with it; but we cannot listen to his censures of a noble genius, who snatched graces beyond the reach of art; whom Pompey approved, and whom Tully almost idolized. When specimens of perfect composition were to be pointed out, the choice has fallen on the Georgics of Virgil, and the Menexenus of Plato.

Both Xenophon and Plato display what is more valuable than all verbal elegance, a fine system of morality, which long shone forth in the world as a light unequalled, till the sun of revelation arose. If Xenophon's memoirs were divested of a few superfluities and a few absurdities, I should not fear to assert, that they approach very nearly to the gospel, in the exhibition of instructive lessons, and a sublime, yet encouraging example, of all human excellence; for, with respect to the calumnies advanced against Socrates, they undoubtedly originated from the fa

ther of lies. And those writers are to be esteemed the enemies to human virtue and happiness, who employ their ingenuity in detracting from illustrious and established reputation.

NO. CXXVII. ON THE ADVANTAGES DERIVABLE FROM NATIONAL ADVERSITY.

IT is very certain, that national prosperity, as it is comprehended in the idea of numerous fleets and armies, of extensive empire, large revenues, advantageous commerce, and a profusion of money in specie, is a kind of good by no means necessarily connected with moral good, or with the substantial happiness of individuals. It makes a splendid figure in imagination's eye; but to reason, it appears in a very questionable shape, and experience is able to evince, that it has always diffused profligacy and misery through the walks of private life; and, by introducing luxury, licentiousness, indolence, and corruption, has at once destroyed all that can render human nature dignified and happy, and precipitated the decline and the downfal of empires, while triumphing in fancied glory.

It has been observed, that the bodies politic and natural bear to each other a remarkable analogy. A human form pampered, bloated, and plethoric, will often have the appearance of strength, as well as magnitude; though no state of it can be less adapted to facilitate the animal movements, or in greater danger of a hasty dissolution. The body politic also loses in muscular force, as much as it ac

quires of unwieldly size, till, by the gradual decrease of vigour and augmentation of weight, it totters on its baseless supports, and, at last, lies level in the dust with Babylon and ancient Rome. Luxury, the inevitable consequence of what is falsely called national prosperity, becomes the grave of empires, and of all that could adorn them, or render their long duration a rational object of desire.

There is, undoubtedly, a certain degree of magnitude, at which, when a state is arrived, it must of necessity undergo the alternative, of being purged of its peccant humours, or falling into a nerveless languor and consequent decline. Perhaps our own country has already arrived at that degree, and is now, under the operation of Divine Providence, suffering the amputation of its morbid excrescences for the salvation of its health and existence. It may lose some of its revenues; but it may save and me. liorate its morals and its liberty. Ministers may be shaken from their seats, pensioners and placemen may be reduced to despair, funds may be annihilated, and estates brought down to their natural value; but freedom, but virtue, but industry, but the British constitution, but human nature shall survive the wreck, and emerge, like silver and gold when tried by the fire, with new value and unsullied lustre. After a state of political adversity, something may take place in society, similar to the expected renovation of all things, after the general conflagration of the uni

verse.

Distress and difficulty are known to operate in private life as the spurs of diligence. Powers, which would for ever have laid dormant in the halcyon

days of ease and plenty, have been called forth by adversity, 'and advanced their possessor to the most enviable heights of virtue, happiness, and glory. Man is naturally indolent, and when undisturbed, will bask and sleep in the sunshine till the sleep of death; but, when roused by the blast and the thunder, he rises, strains every sinew, and marches on to enterprise. Success will almost infallibly attend great exertions uniformly and resolutely continued; so that what begun in misery ends in triumph, as the sun which rose in a mist descends with serenity, and paints the whole horizon with gold and purple.

Public industry may be excited in the same manner, and in the same degree, by public misfortunes. The nation is impoverished, or, in other words, its superfluities are retrenched. It is an event devoutly to be wished. Luxury, with ten thousand evils in her train, is obliged to withdraw, and the humble virtues, whom she had driven by her insolence into exile, cheerfully advance from their concealment. Industry and frugality take the lead; but to what a degree of vigour must every muscle of the body politic be braced, when every member is, in some measure, actuated by industry and frugality. No man ever yet exerted himself to the utmost of his strength; nor is it on record, that any state was ever yet so exhausted, but that while it enjoyed liberty, it might draw new resources from its own vitals. Though the tree is lopped, yet so long as the root remains unhurt, it will throw out a greater luxuriancy of branches, produce fruit of better flavour, and derive fresh vigour from the axe. If one has accidentally disturbed an ant-hill, or broken the fabric