TO THE READER.

That I may not obtain credit for more learning than I possess, I beg to acknowledge the assistance I have received in my version of the curious relict of antiquity now offered to the public from the beautiful Italian MSS. of the erudite Professor of Greek in the university of *****. I hesitate to designate more clearly the illustrious Hellenist whose labors have brought to light this curious fragment. Since the establishment of the saintly domination of the Vandals throughout the territories of the rebellious and heterodox Italy, and particularly in consequence of the ordinance of his most orthodox, most legitimate, and most Austrian majesty, bearing that his dominions being in want of good subjects, his colleges are forbidden to send forth good scholars,[1] it has become necessary for the gownsmen of the classic peninsula to banish all profane learning from their lectures and their libraries, and to evince a holy abhorrence viof the sciences and arts which they erst professed. The list of the class books now employed in the transalpine

schools is exceedingly curious; I regret that I have mislaid the one lately supplied to me by an illustrious Italian exile. My memory recalls to me only that, in the school of rhetoric, the orations of Cicero are superseded by those of the Marquis of Londonderry, and the philippics of Demosthenes by those of M. de Peyronnet; that the professors of history have banished the decades of Livy for the Martyrs of Mons. de Chateaubriand; and that the students of Greek, in place of the Odes of Pindar, and the retreat of the ten thousand from Cunaxa, construe the hexameters of the English Laureate, and the advance of Louis the XVIII. upon Ghent. In this state of the Italian world of Letters, it is not surprising that the scholar, to whose perseverance, ingenuity, and learning, the public are indebted for the following fragment, should object to lay claim to the honor which is his due.

1. Je ne veux pas de savans dans mes etats, je veux de bons sujets, was the dictum of the Austrian Autocrat to an Italian Professor.

The original MS. fell into the hands of my erudite correspondent in the autumn of the year 1817. From that period until the commencement of last winter, all his leisure hours were devoted to the arduous task of unrolling the leaves, and decyphering the half defaced characters. The imperfect condition of the MS. soon obliged him to forego his first intention of transcribing the original Greek; he had recourse, therefore, to an Italian version, supplying the chasms, consisting sometimes of a word, sometimes of a line, and occasionally of a phrase, with a viicareful and laborious study of the context. While this version was printing at Florence, a MS. copy was transmitted to me in Paris, with a request that I would forthwith see it translated into the English and French languages. The former version I undertook myself, and can assure the reader that it possesses the merit of fidelity. The first erudite translator has not conceived it necessary to encumber the volume with marginal notes; nor have I found either the inclination or the ability to

supply them. Those who should wish to refer to the allusions scattered through the old classics to the characters and systems here treated of, will find much assistance from the marginal authorities of the eloquent and ingenious Bayle.

I have only to add, that the present volume comprises little more than a third of the original MS.; it will be sufficient, however, to enable the public to form an estimate of the probable value of the whole.

CHAPTER I.

“Oh! monstrous,” cried the young Theon, as he came from the portico of Zeno. “Ye Gods! and will ye suffer your names to be thus blasphemed? Why do ye not strike with thunder the actor and teacher of such enormities? What! will ye suffer our youth, and the youth of after ages, to be seduced by this shameless Gargettian? Shall the Stoic portico be forsaken for the garden of Epicurus? Minerva, shield thy city! Shut the ears of thy sons against the voice of this deceiver!”

Thus did Theon give vent to the indignation which the words of Timocrates had worked up within him. Timocrates had been a disciple of the new school; but, quarrelling with his master, had fled to the followers of Zeno; and to make the greater merit of his apostacy, and better to gain the hearts of his new friends, 10poured forth daily execrations on his former teacher, painting him and his disciples in the blackest colors of deformity; revealing, with a countenance distorted as with horror, and a voice hurried and suppressed as from the agonies of dreadful recollections, the secrets of those midnight orgies, where, in the midst of his pupils, the philosopher of Gargettium officiated as master of the accursed ceremonies of riot and impiety.

Full of these nocturnal horrors the young Theon traversed with hasty steps the streets of Athens, and, issuing from the city, without perceiving that he did so, took the road to the Piræus. The noise of the harbor roused him to recollection, and feeling it out of tune with his thoughts, he turned up the more peaceful banks of Cephisus, and, seating himself on the stump of a withered olive, his feet almost washed by the water, he fell back again into his reverie. How long he had sat he knew not, when the sound of gently approaching footsteps once more recalled him. He turned his head, and, after a start and gaze of astonishment, bent with veneration to the figure before him. It was of the middle size, and robed in white, pure as the vestments of the Pythia. The shape, the attitude, the foldings of the garment, were such as the chisel of Phidias would 11have given to the God of Elocution. The head accorded with the rest of the figure; it sat upon the shoulders with a grace that a painter would have paused to contemplate—elevated, yet somewhat inclining forward, as if

habituated gently to seek and benevolently to yield attention. The face a poet would have gazed upon, and thought he beheld in it one of the images of his fancy embodied. The features were not cast for the statuary; they were noble but not regular. Wisdom beamed mildly from the eye, and candor was on the broad forehead: the mouth reposed in a soft, almost imperceptible smile, that did not curl the lips or disturb the cheeks, and was seen only in the serene and holy benignity that shone over the whole physiognomy: It was a gleam of sunshine sleeping on a lucid lake. The first lines of age were traced on the brow and round the chin, but so gently as to mellow rather than deepen expression: the hair indeed seemed prematurely touched by time, for it was of a pure silver, thrown back from the forehead, and fringing the throat behind with short curls. He received benignly the salutation of the youth, and gently with his hand returning it—“Let me not break your meditations; I would rather share than disturb them.” If the stranger’s appearance had enchanted Theon,

12his voice did now more so: never had a sound so sweet, so musical, struck upon his ear.

“Surely I behold and hear a divinity!” he cried, stepping backwards, and half stooping his knee with veneration.

“From the groves of the academy, I see,” said the sage, advancing and laying his hand on the youth’s shoulder.

Theon looked up with a modest blush, and encouraged by the sweet aspect of the sage, replied, “No; from the Stoic portico.”

“Ah! I had not thought Zeno could send forth such a dreamer. You are in a good school,” he continued, observing the youth confused by this remark, “a school of real virtue; and, if I read faces well, as I think I do, I see a pupil that will not disgrace its doctrines.”

Theon’s spirit returned; the stranger had that look, and voice, and manner, which instantly give security to the timid, and draw love from the feeling heart. “If you be man, you exert more than human influence over the souls of your fellows. I have seen you but one moment, and that moment has laid me at your feet.”

“Not quite so low, I hope,” returned the sage with a smile; “I had always rather be the companion than the master.”

13“Either, both,” said the eager youth, and seizing the half-extended hand of the sage, pressed it respectfully to his lips.

“You are an enthusiast, I see. Beware, my young friend! such as you must be the best or the worst of men.”

“Then, had I you for a guide, I should be the best.”

“What! do you a stoic ask a guide?”

“I, a stoic! Oh! would I were! I yet stand but on the threshhold of the temple.”

“But standing there you have at least looked within and seen the glories, and will not that encourage you to advance? Who that hath seen virtue doth not love her, and pant after her possession?”

“True, true; I have seen virtue in her noblest form—Alas! so noble, that my eyes have been dazzled by the contemplation. I have looked upon Zeno with admiration and despair.”

“Learn rather to look with love. He who but admires virtue, yields her but half her due. She asks to be approached, to be embraced—not with fear, but with confidence—not with awe but with rapture.”

“Yet who can gaze on Zeno and ever hope to rival him?”

“You, my young friend: Why should you 14not? You have innocence; you have sensibility; you have enthusiasm; you have ambition—With what better promise could Zeno begin his career? Courage! courage! my son!” stopping, for they had insensibly walked towards the city during the dialogue, and laying his hand on Theon’s head, “We want but the will to be as great as Zeno.”

Theon had drawn his breath for a sigh, but his action and the look that accompanied it, changed the sigh to a smile. “You would make me vain.”

“No; but I would make you confident. Without confidence Homer had never written his Iliad—No; nor would Zeno now be worshipped in his portico.”

“Do you then think confidence would make all men Homers and Zenos?”

“Not all; but a good many. I believe thousands to have the seeds of excellence in them, who never discover the possession. But we were not speaking of poetry and philosophy, only of virtue—all men certainly cannot be poets or philosophers, but all men may be virtuous.”

“I believe,” returned the youth with a modest blush, “if I might walk with you each day on the borders of Cephisus, I should sometimes play truant at the portico.”

15“Ye gods forbid (exclaimed the sage playfully) that I should steal a proselyte! From Zeno too? It might cost me dear.—What are you thinking of?” he resumed, after a pause.

“I was thinking,” replied Theon, “what a loss for man that you are not teacher in the gardens in place of the son of Neocles.”

“Do you know the son of Neocles?” asked the sage.

“The gods forbid that I should know him more than by report! No, venerable stranger; wrong me not so much as to think I have entered the gardens of Epicurus. It is not long that I have been in Athens, but I hope, if I should henceforth live my life here, I should never be seduced by the advocate of vice.”

“From my soul I hope the same. But you say you have not long been in Athens—You are come here to study philosophy.”

“Yes; my father was a scholar of Xenocrates; but when he sent me from Corinth, he bade me attend all the schools, and fix with that which should give me the highest views of virtue.”

“And you have found it to be that of Zeno.”

“I think I have: but I was one day nearly gained by a young Pythagorean, and have 16been often in danger of becoming one of the academy.”

“You need not say in danger: For though I think you choose well in standing mainly by Zeno, I would have you attend all the schools, and that with a willing ear. There is some risk in following one particular sect, even the most perfect, lest the mind become warped and the heart contracted. Yes, young man! it is possible that this should happen even in the portico. No sect without its prejudices and its predilections.”

“I believe you say true.”

“I know I say true,” returned the sage in a tone of playfulness he had more than once used; “I know I say true; and had I before needed evidence to confirm my opinion, this our present conversation would have afforded it.”

“How so?”

“Nay, were I to explain, you would not now credit me: No man can see his own prejudices; no, though a philosopher should point at them. But patience, patience! Time and opportunity shall right all things. Why, you did not think,” he resumed after a short pause, “you did not really think you were without prejudices? Eighteen, not more, if I may judge by complexion, and without prejudices! Why, I should hardly dare to assert 17I was myself without them, and I believe I have fought harder and somewhat longer against them than you can have done.”

“What would you have me do?” asked the youth, timidly.

“Have you do?—Why, I would have you do a very odd thing—No other than to take a turn or two in Epicurus’s garden.”

“Epicurus’s garden! Oh! Jupiter!”

“Very true, by Juno!”

“What! To hear the laws of virtue confounded and denied?—To hear vice exculpated, advocated, panegyrized?—Impiety and atheism professed and inculcated?—To witness the nocturnal orgies of vice and debauchery?—Ye gods, what horrors has Timocrates revealed!”

“Horrors, in truth, somewhat appalling, my young friend; but I should apprehend Timocrates to be a little mistaken. That the laws of virtue were ever confounded and denied, or vice advocated and panegyrized, by any professed teacher, I incline to doubt. And were I really to hear such things, I should simply conclude the speaker mad, or otherwise that he was amusing himself by shifting the meaning of words, and that by the term virtue he understood vice, and so by the contrary. As to the inculcating of impiety and atheism, this may 18be exaggerated or misunderstood. Many are called impious, not for having a worse, but a different religion from their neighbors; and many atheistical, not for the denying of God, but for thinking somewhat peculiarly concerning him. Upon the nocturnal orgies of vice and debauchery I can say nothing; I am too profoundly ignorant of these matters, either to exculpate or condemn them. Such things may be, and I never hear of them. All things are possible. Yes,” turning his benignant face full upon the youth, “even that Timocrates should lie.”

“This possibility had indeed not occurred to me.”

“No, my young friend; and shall I tell you why? Because he told you absurdities. Let an impostor keep to probability, and he will hardly impose. By dealing in the marvellous, he tickles the imagination, and carries away the judgment; and judgment once gone, what shall save even a wise man from folly?”

“I should truly rejoice, to find the Gargettian’s doctrine less monstrous than I have hitherto thought them. I say less monstrous, for you would not wish me to think them good.”

“I would wish you to think nothing good, or bad either, upon my decision. The first and 19the last thing I would say to man is, think for yourself! It is a bad sentence of the Pythagoreans, ‘The master said so.’ If the young disciple you mentioned should ever succeed in your conversion, believe in the metempsychosis for some other reason than that Pythagoras ‘taught it.’”

“But, if I may ask, do you think well of Epicurus?”

“I meant not to make an apology for Epicurus, only to give a caution against Timocrates—but see, we are in the city; and fortunately so, for it is pretty nigh dark. I have a party of young friends awaiting me, and, but that you may be apprehensive of nocturnal orgies, I would ask you to join us.”

“I shall not fear them where I have such a conductor,” replied the youth, laughing.

“I do not think it quite so impossible, however, as you seem to do,” said the sage, laughing in his turn, with much humor, and entering a house as he spoke; then throwing open with one arm a door, and with the other gently drawing the youth along with him, “I am Epicurus!”

CHAPTER II.

The astonished, the affrighted Theon started from the arm of the sage, and, staggering backwards, was saved, probably, from falling, by a statue that stood against the wall on one side of the door: he leaned against it, pale and almost fainting. He knew not what to do, scarcely what to feel, and was totally blind to all the objects around him. His conductor, who had possibly expected his confusion, did not turn to observe it, but advanced in such a manner as to cover him from the view of the company, and, still to give time for recollection, stood receiving and returning salutations.

“Well met, my sons! and I suppose you say well met, also. Are you starving, or am I to be starved? Have you ate up the supper, or only sat longing for it, cursing my delay?”

“The latter, only the latter,” cried a lively youth, hurrying to meet his master. Another and another advanced, and in a moment he was locked in a close circle.

“Mercy! mercy!” cried the philosopher, “drive me a step further and you will overturn a couple of statues.” Then, looking over his shoulder, “I have brought you, if he has not run away, a very pleasant young Corinthian, 21for whom, until he gain his own tongue, I shall demand reception.” He held out his hand with a look of bewitching encouragement, and the yet faltering Theon advanced. The mist had now passed from his eyes, and the singing from his ears, and both room and company stood revealed before him. Perhaps, had it not been for this motion, and still more this look of the sage, he had just now made a retreat instead of an advance. “In the hall of Epicurus—in that hall where Timocrates had beheld”—oh! horrid imagination! “And he a disciple of Zeno, the friend of Cleanthes—the son of a follower of Plato—had he crossed the threshhold of vice, the threshhold of the impious Gargettian!” Yes; he had certainly fled, but for that extended hand, and that bewitching smile. These however conquered. He advanced, and with an effort at composure,

met the offered hand. The circle made way, and Epicurus presented “a friend.” “His name you must learn from himself, I am only acquainted with his heart, and that, on a knowledge of two hours, I pronounce myself in love with.”

“Then he shall be my brother,” cried the lively youth who had before spoken, and he ran to the embrace of Theon.

“When shall we use our own eyes, ears, 22and understandings?” said the sage, gently stroking his scholar’s head. “See! our new friend knows not how to meet your premature affection.”

“He waits,” returned the youth archly, “to receive the same commendation of me that I have of him. Let the master say he is in love with my heart, and he too will open his arms to a brother.”

“I hope he is not such a fool,” gaily replied the sage. Then with an accent more serious, but still sweeter, “I hope he will judge all things, and all people, with his own understanding, and not with that of Epicurus, or yet of a wiser man. When may I hope this of Sofron,” smiling and shaking his head, “can Sofron tell me?”

“No, indeed he cannot,” rejoined the scholar, smiling and shaking his head also, as in mimicry of his master.

“Go, go, you rogue! and show us to our supper: I more than half suspect you have devoured it.” He turned, and familiarly taking Theon by the shoulder, walked up the room, or rather gallery, and entered a spacious rotunda.