lamon,
("Iliad," xi. 542.)--an argument that Hector knew himself. And Homer
made Ulysses use the saying "Do not overdo," when he besought his friend
Diomedes not to commend him, too much nor yet to censure him too
much. And for suretyship he exposes it as a matter unsafe, nay highly
dangerous, declaring that to be bound for idle and wicked men is full
of hazard. ("Iliad," x. 249; "Odyssey," viii. 351.) To confirm this,
Chersias reported how Jupiter had thrown Ate headlong out of heaven,
because she was by when he made the promise about the birth of Hercules
whereby he was circumvented.

Here Solon broke in: I advise, that we now give ear to Homer,--

But now the night extends her awful shade:
The Goddess parts you: be the night obeyed.
("Iliad," vii. 282.)

If it please the company then, let us sacrifice to the Muses, to
Neptune, and to Amphitrite, and so bid each adieu for this night.

This was the conclusion of that meeting, my dear Nicarchus.

END OF THIRTEEN----------

HOW A YOUNG MAN OUGHT TO HEAR POEMS.

Though it may be allowed to be a question fit for the determination of
those concerning whom Cato said, Their palates are more sensitive than
their minds, whether that saying of Philoxenus the poet be true or no,
The most savory flesh is that which is no flesh, and fish that is no
fish. Yet this to me, Marcus Sedatus, is out of question, that those
precepts of philosophy which seem not to be delivered with a designed
gravity, such as becomes philosophers, take most with persons that are
very young, and meet with a more ready acceptance and compliance from
them. Whence it is that they do not only read through Aesop's fables and
the fictions of poets and the Abaris of Heraclides and Ariston's Lyco;
but also such doctrines as relate to the souls of men, if something
fabulous be mixed with them, with an excess of pleasure that borders on
enthusiasm. Wherefore we are not only to govern their appetites in the
delights of eating and drinking, but also (and much more) to inure them
to a like temperance in reading and hearing, that, while they make use
of enjoyment as a sauce, they may pursue that which is wholesome and
profitable in those things which they read. For neither can a city be
secure if but one gate be left open to receive the enemy, though all the
rest be shut; nor a young man safe, though he be sufficiently fortified
against the assaults of all other pleasures, whilst he is with