duing by secret ways and stratagems the hearts of all; it only remained to show, why this universal love loses its general name, and becomes appropriated to a peculiar train of feelings and a peculiar class of human individuals. This is done by producing the similar instance of poesy, which appropriates to itself that appellation of creative power, which ought to belong to every act, whereby a nonentity proceeds into being; and from all these reasonings, some of which are conducted to considerable length, results a general definition of love, that it is a desire of good, and that the aim of this desire is not only to enjoy good, but to perpetuate that enjoyment for ever. After these little prelusions, Diotima proceeds to take another view of her subject, and love is declared to be Parturition in the beautiful as well in a mental way as in that which is corporeal.' This doctrine, at its first annunciation, the philosopher confesses, sadly puzzled him; but the fatidical maid without thrashing him, as he allows his preceptress Aspasia was sometimes on the point of doing, by subsequent explanations makes it more intelligible to him. Socrates, by the mother's side, was conversant with a language which carried him very learnedly through subjects requiring scientific discrimination, and the satirical productions of the day show that he was fond of using this advantage a little too often and a little too much. According to this language, all of human race are full of the seeds of generation, both in their bodies and minds; and that which teems with generative power, it is declared, after a certain age, requires to be freed from the throes with which it labours. This deliverance, it is rather asserted than proved, must take place in the beautiful; for to the ugly and deformed, the philosopher had an insuperable aversion and in expressing it he has again the advantage of professional language, which, as it would be hazardous to follow, we must bring the first discourse between Socrates and Diotima to an abrupt conclusion. The concession made in the former train of reasoning, that love is the desire of having good in perpetual possession, led to a necessary consequence that love desires immortality. This annexation of immortality to the desire of good, seems to be the great key-stone on which the Socratic doctrine of erotics hung; and the second discourse of Diotima consists of a series of explanations for facilitating the understanding of those two propositions, which had so much gravelled the intellects of Socrates at their first annunciation-that love is parturition in the beauti Plato in Menexeno, 409 G. ful ful both on the side of body and mind. Some hints have already escaped the prophetess, that personal immortality being impossible to be attained by any being, whose nature is mortal, every such being seeks to continue itself and its enjoyment of good in the only way possible, the propagation of its species, and the production of some being resembling itself. Hence that love of beauty, with which every animal is most smitten in the beautiful of its own kind; hence that accompanying instinct to mix and unite with it and thus to generate an animal of the same kind : hence that affectionate and fearless spirit by which the young both of human and animal life are fostered and protected. But the metaphysical spirit of Diotima does not leave her satisfied with working out this procreative immortality. Mortal nature, she asserts, seeks by all possible means to put on immortality and perpetuate itself for ever-and this, it is maintained, can only be done by learning something new in place of that which is old. In common language, indeed, human identity is unbroken, and by whatever name a person is called in his youth, the same attaches to him in his old age as if no change had taken place, and as if he had continually remained the same individual: but the preceptress of Socrates was elevated much above such inaccurate modes of speaking, and knew that every person is in a continual state of renovation, losing some portions of himself and acquiring others. To show this taking place in bodily substance, in the hair, the flesh, the bones, and the blood, or in what is less apparent, in our manners, morals, opinions, desires, pleasures, fears and griefs, required no great acuteness of observation: but Diotima seems to value herself upon the discovery, that this continual operation of loss and gain takes place also in our state of knowledge—that not only do we never continue long the same persons as to the sum of our knowledge, but that we suffer also the same change in every particular article of that knowledge. This doctrine she grounds upon the word meditation. For what we call meditation, says Diotima, supposes some knowledge to have actually, as it were, left us; and indeed, oblivion is the departure of this knowledge meditation then raising up, in the room of this departed knowledge, a fresh remembrance in our minds, preserves in some manner and continues to us that which we had lost. : When I heard this discourse from Diotima, says Socrates, I was struck with wonder: and tell me, said I, thou wisest of women, is all this really true? There cannot be a shadow of doubt about it, replied she, in the tone of a perfect sophist. Having proved that love on the side of the body is a desire of immortality, it now remained for the fatidical maid to show, how this this aspiration after immortality, is evinced in the diviner part of us. Having expatiated for some time on that love of fame, by which the human breast is so generally agitated, and traced to this principle all the great actions which ennoble ancient history; the devoted Alcestis redeeming her husband's life by the sacrifice of her own-the fierce Achilles, finding no solace but in death for the loss of his friend ;-the generous Codrus establishing his country's prosperity by his blood;-the prophetess has again recourse to obstetric language, with the object of proving the second part of her hypothesis; viz. that love is parturition in the beautiful in a mental way. Fearful of resuming a tone of language, which cannot long be maintained without offence, we cannot, perhaps, do better than borrow the abstract of the learned translator of a part of the Platonic Banquet, Floyer Sydenham, who, if he does not always catch the naif and bantering tone of his original, at least exhibits great dexterity in avoiding all those terms of expression, which either throw an air of suspicion upon the motives of the person who uses them, or leaves them open to the mirth of the delicate and quick-witted. From corporeal beauty, and that lower species of love regarding it, man, as his mind opens more and is improved, naturally proceeds further: attaining the sight of that beauty which is seen only by the eye of the mind, in the temper and disposition of some fellow-mind; and fired with that love which attends the sight of mental beauty. To this love also is annexed, says Socrates, the desire of generating, of stamping upon that mind its own thoughts, and of raising up and maturing between them an intellectual progeny of generous sentiments and fair ideas. By means of this converse, such as improves the understanding, the mind rises higher, and attains to view beauty in those things themselves, the subjects of their conversation: first in virtuous pursuits, studies, and employments; next in the sciences and every branch of knowledge. In the embraces of these beauties the mind generates an offspring of the fairest kind and the most durable; the poet, his immortal writings; the hero, through the force of his example, continual copies of his virtues; the founder of civil polities, through his institutions, a long succession of patriot actions; and the legislator, wise and beneficial laws, to bless the latest posterity. But if the soul be endued with a genius of the highest kind, she rests not here, nor fixes her attachment on any of these mental excellencies or beauties in particular. The genuine lover of truth and nature rises from hence to the science of mind itself, in which all those excellencies and beauties are comprehended; and contemplates that universal, original, and exemplar-beauty, of which she she herself partakes and from which every fair form of nature, every generous sentiment, every amiable and graceful action, each particular science, and all the fine productions of genius and art, derive their beauty.' An enthusiastic display of that exemplar beauty, which is to reward all their labours, forms the conclusion of this long discourse, and we see its encomiast revelling with delight in that ocean of beauty, into which he has gradually laboured to plunge his auditors. This is that beautiful, (and we now return to our original,) which never had a beginning and will never have au end: eternal, immortal, without growth or decay, it always is, and is the same however viewed, or whenever viewed, being independent of light, of time, of place, position, and person. This is that beautiful, which cannot be made the object of imagination, as if it had some face or hands of its own, or any other parts belonging to body it is no particular reason, nor is it some particular mind. It resides not in any being, of whose kind there is any other resen bling it: it exists not in the earth nor in the heaven, nor in any other part of the universe: but is by itself and with itself, in itself com plete, sole and single in its essence, always uniform and immortal. Whatever else is beautiful, is beautiful only by participation of it, but with this condition, that neither by its birth nor dissolution, follows either increase or diminution to that beautiful, nor does any accident happen to it. This is the right road to erotics, whether we take it spontaneously, or put ourselves under the guidance of others. We must begin with those other beautiful things, and proceed in them for the sake of that beautiful; we must use ladders, as it were, and go on from a love of one to a love of two; from the love of two beautiful bodies to a love of all beautiful bodies; from bodies excelling in beauty, we must advance to arts excelling in beauty; from beautiful arts to beautiful sciences, till we end in that science, which finally brings us to the knowledge of Essential Beauty.' That the better parts of this discourse, with all their air of mysticism and fancifulness, and vague longings after immortality about them, demand high admiration, is readily admitted: they have our admiration; but could their promulgator be brought to life, and witness sentiments infinitely more sublime, divested of all their baser accompaniments; could he see vague longings after immortality converted into the fulness of hope; could he behold opinions, which puzzled and confounded his mighty intellect, arranging themselves with the most beautiful simplicity in the mind of a child, we believe that his admiration and astonishment would far exceed ours. His feelings would not be those of the shallow infidels and materialists who mock at what they are incompetent to to comprehend; and deride what they have not sensibility enough to feel, 'Who read to doubt or read to scorn,' no: they would resemble those of the tenants of the enchanted boat, when the broad expanse of the unlimited ocean, bursting on their sight, showed them in what a narrow sea they had hitherto been sailing, and taught them to estimate things by the only standard which exists for a fair estimate, the standard of comparison. Se'l mar qui è tanto, ove il terreno il serra, CHE FIA COLA DOV' EGLI HA IN SEN LA TERRA. Ger. Lib. cant. xv. st. 23. In claiming for this truly dramatic dialogue of Plato, and still more for that of Xenophon which follows, the title of the Athenian High Comedy, we think we shall only anticipate the reader -and its general construction proceeds upon canons, not much removed from those which regulated the Low Comedy a little buffoonery at the commencement, a strong view taken of some important political or moral object in the centre, and then, a revelry, not to say ruffianism, of enjoyment towards the conclusion. It is this revelry which remains to be considered in the Platonic banquet. The speech of Socrates commands the justly merited approbation of a part of the company, (т85 μev eπaively),—rapture had been extinguished in the debt paid to Agathon's oration. Aristophanes, thinking that a little blow had been aimed in it at his own previous speech, rises to explain, when a violent knocking is heard at the door, and the voices of revellers (xwpasα1),* and a female This was the name assumed by the young men of Athens, when hot with the grape,' and reeling home from their suppers. For an account of the night-brawls, which frequently took place in Athens, and the singular disclosures sometimes made in consequence before the courts of judicature, see the speeches of Lysias contra Sitnonem, Demosthenes contra Cononem, and Eschines contra Timarchum. It was also usual for the xaμaçai, or revellers, to serenade their mistresses. A specimen of the Comastic songs is preserved in Aristophanes, and, with a little alteration, it might not be altogether unfit for modern ears. We have given as much of it as we dare present to our readers. Wake, wake, wake! Night's not yet at odds with day, Fair one, wake, 'tis love that pours Night |