gnity of human nature is exalted by the simple recollection,
that Isocrates was the companion of Plato and Xenophon; that he
assisted, perhaps with the historian Thucydides, at the first
representation of the dipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides;
and that his pupils AEschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown of
patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of Theophrastus, who
taught at Athens with the founders of the Stoic and Epicurean sects.
The ingenuous youth of Attica enjoyed the benefits of their domestic
education, which was communicated without envy to the rival cities. Two
thousand disciples heard the lessons of Theophrastus; the schools of
rhetoric must have been still more populous than those of philosophy;
and a rapid succession of students diffused the fame of their teachers
as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian language and name. Those
limits were enlarged by the victories of Alexander; the arts of Athens
survived her freedom and dominion; and the Greek colonies which the
Macedonians planted in Egypt, and scattered over Asia, undertook long
and frequent pilgrimages to worship the Muses in their favorite temple
on the banks of the Ilissus. The Latin conquerors respectfully listened
to the instructions of their subjects and captives; the names of Cicero
and Horace were enrolled in the schools of Athens; and after the perfect
settlement of the Roman empire, the natives of Italy, of Africa, and
of Britain, conversed in the groves of the academy with their
fellow-students of the East. The studies of philosophy and eloquence are
congenial to a popular state, which encourages the freedom of inquiry,
and submits only to the force of persuasion. In the republics of Greece
and Rome, the art of speaking was the powerful engine of patriotism or
ambition; and the schools of rhetoric poured forth a colony of statesmen
and legislators. When the liberty of public debate was suppressed, the
orator, in the honorable profession of an advocate, might plead the
cause of innocence and justice; he might abuse his talents in the
more profitable trade of panegyric; and the same precepts continued
to dictate the fanciful declamations of the sophist, and the chaster
beauties of historical composition. The systems which professed to
unfold the nature of God, of man, and of the universe, entertained the
curiosity of the philosophic student; and according to the temper of
his mind, he might doubt with the