fair examples of virtue, and of the largest discourse, or rather extending to the whole duty of a good and honorable man.

This, friends, is my praise of Socrates. I have added my blame of him for his ill-treatment of me; and he has ill-treated not only me, but Charmides the son of Glaucon, and Euthydemus the son of Diocles, and many others in the same way beginning as their lover he has ended by making them pay their addresses to him. Wherefore I say to you, Agathon, “ Be not deceived by him; learn from me and take warning, and dɔn't be a fool and learn by experience," as the proverb says.

When Alcibiades had done speaking, there was a laugh at his plainness of speech, as he seemed to be still in love with Socrates. You are sober, Alcibiades, said Socrates, or you would never have gone about to hide the purpose of your satyr's praises, for all this long story is only an ingenious circumlocution, the point of which comes in by the way at the end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and your notion is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you and you only ought to love Agathon. But the plot of this Satyric or Silenic drama has been detected, and you must not allow him, Agathon, to set us at variance.

I believe you are right, said Agathon, and I am disposed to think that his intention in placing himself between you and me was only to divide us; but he shall gain nothing by that move, as I will go and lie in the couch next to you.

Yes, yes, replied Socrates, by all means come here and lie on the couch below me.

Alas! said Alcibiades, how am I fooled by this man; he is determined to get the better of me at every turn.

you, allow Agathon to lie between us.

I do beseech

Impossible, said Socrates, as you praised me, and I ought to praise my neighbor on the right, he will be out of order in praising me again when he ought rather to be praised by me. and I must entreat you to consent to this, and not be jealous. for I have a great desire to praise the youth.

Ha, ha! cried Agathon; I will rise instantly, that I may be praised by Socrates.

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The usual way, said Alcibiades, where Socrates is, no one else has any chance with the fair, and now how readily has he invented a specious reason for attracting Agathon to himself.

Agathon arose in order that he might take his place on the couch by Socrates, when suddenly a band of revelers entered,

and spoiled the order of the banquet. Some one who was going out having left the door open, they had found their way in, aud made themselves at home; great confusion ensued, and every one was compelled to drink large quantities of wine. Aristodemus said that Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and others went away he himself fell asleep, and as the nights were long took a good rest: he was awakened towards daybreak by a crowing of cocks, and when he awoke, the others were either asleep, or had gone away; there remained awake only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon, who were drinking out of a large goblet which they passed round, and Socrates was discoursing to them. Aristodemus did not hear the beginning of the discourse, and he was only half awake, but the chief thing which he remembered, was Socrates insisting to the other two that the genius of comedy was the same as that of tragedy, and that the writer of tragedy ought to be a writer of comedy also. To this they were compelled to assent, being sleepy, and not quite understanding his meaning. And first of all Aristophanes dropped, and then, when the day was already dawning, Agathon. Socrates, when he had put them to sleep, rose to depart, Aristodemus, as his manner was, following him. At the Lyceum he took a bath and passed the day as usual; and when evening came he retired to rest at his own home.

PHAEDRUS.

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INTRODUCTION.

THE Phaedrus is closely connected with the Symposium, and may be regarded either as introducing or following it. The two Dialogues together contain the whole philosophy of Plato on the nature of love, which in the Republic and in the later writings of Plato is only introduced playfully or as a figure of speech. But in the Phaedrus and Symposium love and philosophy join hands, and one is an aspect of the other. The spiritual and emotional part is elevated into the ideal, to which in the Symposium mankind are described as looking forward, and which in the Phaedrus, as well as in the Phaedo, they are seeking to recover from a former state of existence. Whether the subject of the Dialogue is love or rhetoric, or the union of the two, or the relation of philosophy to love and to art in general, will be hereafter considered.

Phaedrus has been passing the day with Lysias, the celebrated rhetorician, and is going to refresh himself by taking a walk outside the wall, when he is met by Socrates, who professes that he will not leave him until he has delivered up the speech with which Lysias has regaled him, and which he is carrying about in his mind, or more probably in a book hidden under his cloak, and is intending to study as he walks. The imputation is not denied, and the two agree to direct their steps out of the public way along the stream of the Ilissus towards a plane-tree which is seen in the distance. There, lying down amidst pleasant sounds and scents, they will read the speech of Lysias. The country is a novelty to Socrates, who never goes out of the town; and hence he is full of admiration for the beauties of nature, of which he seems for the first time to be conscious.

In the course of their walk Phaedrus asks the opinion of Socrates respecting the local tradition of Boreas and Oreithyia. Socrates, after a satirical allusion to the "rationalizers" of his day, replies that he has no time for these "nice" interpretations of mythology; "the proper study of mankind is man," who is a far more complex and wonderful being than the serpent Typhon. When they have reached the planc-treć, Phaedrus pulls out the speech and reads.