beautiful flowers, graces, and paintings, only please the imagination, without satisfying the heart, or improving the understanding; solid principles, noble sentiments, and various characters, must be dispersed throughout, in order to display to us truth, virtue, and nature. Man must be represented as he is, and as he appears in his native colors, and under his disguises, that the picture may resemble the original, in which there is always a contrast of virtues and imperfections. At the same time it is necessary to conform to the weakness of mankind; too much moralizing tires, too much reasoning chills the mind; we must turn maxim into action, convey noble sentmients by a single stroke, and instruct rather by the manners of the hero than by his discourse.

"These are the great rules founded upon human nature, and the springs which must be put in motion to make pleasure serviceable to instruction. I foresee that one day these rules may be improved; hitherto I have contented myself with making the theatre a school of philosophy for the young Athenians, and useful to their education. It argues an ignorance of human nature, to think of leading it to wisdom at once by constraint and severity. During the sprightliness and fire of youth, there is no fixing the attention of the mind but by amusing it; this age is always upon its guard against precepts, and therefore, that they may be relished, it is necessary to disguise them under the form of pleasure."

Cyrus admired the great designs, both political and moral, of the theatre, and saw clearly at the same time that the principal rules of tragedy are not arbitrary, but taken from nature. He thought he could

not better shew his thankfulness to Solon for his instructions, than by letting him see the impression they had made upon him. "I now perceive, said he, that the Egyptians are much in the wrong to despise the Greeks, and especially the Athenians. They look upon your graces, your delicacies, and your ingenius turns, as frivolous thoughts, superfluous ornaments, and childish prettinesses, which denote a puerility of mind, and a weakness of genius, which will not suffer you to rise higher. But I see that you have a nicer taste than other nations, that you are better acquainted with human nature, and know how to make pleasure instructive. The people of other countries are mostly affected with bold flights, violent transports, and bloody catastrophes. It is for want of sensibility that we do not distinguish, like you, the different shades of human thought and passion; we are not acquainted with those soft and sweet pleasures that arise from delicate sentiments." Solon, touched with the politeness of the prince's discourse, could not forbear embracing him and saying, " Happy the nation that is governed by a prince who travels over the earth and seas, to carry back into his own country all the treasures of wisdom." Cyrus soon after prepared to leave Athens; and at parting made the same promise to Pisistratus and Solon, which he had made to Chilo and Leonidas, of being ever a faithful ally to Greece. He embarked with Araspes at the port of Phalerus, in a Rhodian vessel which was bound for Crete.

The prince's design in going thither was not only to study the laws of Minos, but likewise to see Pythagoras, who had stopped here in his way to Croton. All the eastern magi, whom that sage had seen in his trav

els, had spoken of him to the prince with encomium; he was esteemed the greatest philosopher of his age, and to understand best of all men the ancient religion of Orpheus. His dispute with Anaximander, the naturalist, had filled all Greece with his fame, and divided all the learned. Araspes had been informed of this matter by the philosophers of Athens, and during the voyage, gave Cyrus the following account of it.

"Pythagoras, who was descended from the ancient kings of the island of Samos, had been captivated with the charms of wisdom from his tenderest years; he discovered, even at that time, a superior genius and a sovereign taste for truth. Not finding at Samos any philosopher who could satisfy his eager thirst for knowledge, he left it at eighteen years of age, to seek elsewhere what he could not meet with in his own country. After having travelled for several years in Egypt and Asia, he returned home, fraught with all the sciences of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Gymnosophists and Hebrews; the sublimity of his genius was equal to the extent of his learning, and the excellent qualities of his heart surpassed both; his lively and fertile imagination did not hinder the justness ofhis reasoning.

"Anaximander had gone from his own country, Miletus, to the island of Samos; he had all the talents which can be acquired by study; but his understanding was more subtle than profound, his notions more glittering than solid, and his deluding eloquence full of sophistry; he was impious in the very bottom of his soul, yet affected all the outward appearances of an extravagant superstition; he held as divine truths all the fables of the poets, and stuck to the literal sense of their allegories ;

he adopted all the vulgar opinions as principles, in order to degrade religion, and make it monstrous.

Pythagoras loudly opposed those mischievous maxims, and endeavored to clear religion of those absurd opinions which dishonored it. Anaximander had known Pythagoras from his infancy; he had instructed him in all the secrets of natural philosophy, and had loved him with the affection of a father; but after the young Samian returned from his travels, the Milesian became jealous of his talents, and resolved to ruin him as an ingrate, who usurped upon his rights, obscured his glory, and was like to be the oracle of Greece; he covered himself with the veil of a deep hypocrisy, and accused Pythagoras of impiety; he secretly made use of all arts to incense the people and alarm Polycrates, who then reigned at Samos; he addressed himself to all the sects of philosophers, and to the priests of the different divinities, to persuade them that the Samian sage, by teaching the unity of one sole principle, destroyed the gods of Greece. The king esteemed and loved Pythagoras, yet he suffered himself to be deceived by the artful representations of Anaximander. The sage was banished from court, and obliged to quit his country. He leads at present a retired life in the island of Crete, and there studies wisdom without books or conversation. Having searched deep into all the mysteries of nature, and discerned those marks of an infinite wisdom and power with which every part of the universe abounds, he soars upon the wings of contemplation, that he may unite himself to the sovereign truth, whose impressions he receives without the medium of words or sounds.* This inspiration, as I am

* See the notion of Simmias the philosopher in Plutarch concerning Socrates's genius.

told, is nothing like that enthusiasm, which heats the mind and agitates the body; but it gradually stills the noise of the senses, and imagination, imposes silence on all vain reasonings, and brings the soul to an inward calm, that resembles the repose of the gods themselves, whose infinite activity does not in the least diminish their perfect tranquillity. In this sublime state Pythagoras practises all the humane and social virtues, but it is with an ultimate regard to the gods, and an imitation of their veracity and goodness; he is modest, affable, polite, delicate in all his sentiments, disinterested in all his actions, speaks little, and never displays his talents but to inspire the love of virtue."

This account of the Samian philosopher gave Cyrus a greater desire to see him, and to learn the particulars of his dispute. The wind continued favorable, and the vessel in a few days made the island of Crete.