been realized, either in our own or in any former age; at any rate the
fulfilment of it has been long deferred.

There is a good deal of ingenuity and even originality in this work, and
a most enlightened spirit pervades it. But it has little or no charm
of style, and falls very far short of the 'New Atlantis' of Bacon,
and still more of the 'Utopia' of Sir Thomas More. It is full of
inconsistencies, and though borrowed from Plato, shows but a superficial
acquaintance with his writings. It is a work such as one might expect
to have been written by a philosopher and man of genius who was also a
friar, and who had spent twenty-seven years of his life in a prison of
the Inquisition. The most interesting feature of the book, common to
Plato and Sir Thomas More, is the deep feeling which is shown by the
writer, of the misery and ignorance prevailing among the lower classes
in his own time. Campanella takes note of Aristotle's answer to Plato's
community of property, that in a society where all things are common, no
individual would have any motive to work (Arist. Pol.): he replies, that
his citizens being happy and contented in themselves (they are required
to work only four hours a day), will have greater regard for their
fellows than exists among men at present. He thinks, like Plato, that if
he abolishes private feelings and interests, a great public feeling will
take their place.

Other writings on ideal states, such as the 'Oceana' of Harrington, in
which the Lord Archon, meaning Cromwell, is described, not as he was,
but as he ought to have been; or the 'Argenis' of Barclay, which is an
historical allegory of his own time, are too unlike Plato to be worth
mentioning. More interesting than either of these, and far more Platonic
in style and thought, is Sir John Eliot's 'Monarchy of Man,' in which
the prisoner of the Tower, no longer able 'to be a politician in the
land of his birth,' turns away from politics to view 'that other city
which is within him,' and finds on the very threshold of the grave that
the secret of human happiness is the mastery of self. The change of
government in the time of the English Commonwealth set men thinking
about first principles, and gave rise to many works of this class...The
great original genius of Swift owes nothing to Plato; nor is there
any trace in the conversation or in the works of Dr. Johnson of any
acquaintance with his writings. He probably would have refuted Plato
without re