juftly imagines, that the ftyle and manner of Ifæus were more forcible, and better adapted to the purposes of real life, than the fine polish, elegant turns, and fweet numbers, which Isocrates taught with fo much refinement. This ardent and nervous diction, which Demofthenes admired, he imitated also with fuch fuccefs, that in his feventeenth year he pronounced the speeches now extant against his guardian Aphobus, and not long after delivered the two against Onetor, which some of the old criticks suppose to have been written, or at leaft corrected, by his mafter we may trace, indeed, the manly features of the inftructor in thofe and feveral other compofitions of the illuftrious pupil, whofe orations on publick affairs, with which Ifæus never interfered, exhibit fo noble a fpecimen of true eloquence, that the palm has been by univerfal confent given to him as the first orator of. Greece; yet his private speeches are not superior in force or beauty to thofe of his teacher, who would probably have thundered with equal energy in the affembly of Athenian citizens, if his temper and inclination had not induced him to prefer the certain advantages of a very ufeful profession to the precarious favours which the giddy populace beftow and resume at their pleafure. This, however, is no more than conjecture; for even the profound antiquary and ex

cellent critick, DIONYSIUS, who has left us an admirable treatise on the style of Ifæus, professes a total ignorance of his life and conduct in civil affairs; but it is obvious, that, if he had taken any part in adminiftration, and harangued the people on important occafions, a man of his great capacity and application must foon have been diftinguished by his contemporaries, and would have been mentioned with applaufe by the hiftorians of his country. My opinion is likewise confirmed by the titles of his genuine fpeeches preferved by Harpocration, Pollux, and Apostolius, not one of which appears to have been delivered on any national queftion; and this may be the reason, why most of the ancients, who are fo copious in praising the smoothness of Isocrates, the graces of Lyfias, the founding periods of Æfchines, the dignity of Lycurgus, the united force and elegance of Hyperides, fay nothing of Ifæus; for all the others were eminent in publick life, or at least compofed orations on fubjects of a publick nature: thus Lyfias added to his other excellent qualities an ardent zeal for liberty, and raised five hundred men at his own expenfe for the fervice of the ftate, in expelling the thirty tyrants, and reftoring the popular government, which he fupported alfo by his eloquence; and Ifocrates laboured fuccessfully to unite the Greeks in a common cause against

their old enemy the king of Perfia: the political conduct of Afchines, Lycurgus, Hyperides, is generally known; and, although Dinarchus would not perhaps have attained much celebrity by the ftrength of his own genius, yet he has acquired a rank among the ten the ten orators of Athens by his affiduous imitation of the great man, whom he could not but admire, even when he impeached him: as to Andocides, his offences and misfortunes would have preferved his name, if his harangue on a peace with the Lacedæmonians had been loft; and, if Antipho had left no speeches in criminal cafes, yet the place, which Thucydides, who is thought to have been his pupil in rhetorick, has given him in the history of the Peloponnefian war, would have rendered him fufficiently illuftrious; fo that, of all the ten, Ifæus alone appears to have confined his talents to the narrow limits of the bar and the compofition of forenfick arguments; which, however interefting to lawyers, cannot be fuppofed to attract the notice of fcholars in general so much as the pompous and folemn orations on treaties and embaffies, or the various events of an obftinate war. After all, one cannot help wondering, that, although Dionyfius lived in the very age of Cicero, and was copied almost too closely by Quintilian, yet the name of Ifæus is not particularly diftinguished in the

rhetorical pieces of the two Romans: for this omiffion I can no otherwife account than by afcribing it to inadvertence or to accident; and by obferving, that the fame of the Philippicks was fo fplendid, as not only to eclipfe the reputation of a mere advocate, but even to diminish the attention due to the other productions of Demofthenes himself, whofe private fpeeches have been almoft as much neglected as thofe of his mafter.

This is all that I have been able to collect concerning the life of ISÆUS, and I now proceed to difcourfe more at large, but without prolixity, on his profeffional character and the ftyle of his oratory, not meaning to anticipate the judgement of the publick on the following fpeeches, but intending to fhow in what eftimation he was holden by the Grecian criticks, and principally by the Halicarnaffian, the most learned of them all; from whom, however, I fhall more than once take leave to diffent.

First, it is hard to conceive, why Dionyfius, in the very beginning of his treatise, the fole object of which was to difplay the peculiar excellence of Ifæus and the originality of his genius, should affert, that he was chiefly illuftrious for having given inftructions to Demofthenes: this is not only contradictory, but the fact itself is fo far from being true, that, if his pupil had

never been born, his reputation would probably have been greater, and he would have been reckoned the first orator of his age, or at least the next to Hyperides; for the judicious Hermogenes, whose rhetorical tracts are fortunately preferved, places him far above Lyfias, and below none but Demofthenes, in that mode of speaking which he calls popular, and which alone seems to be calculated for real struggles in active life, where genuine eloquence has the fulleft room to expand herself in bright and natural colours. It is furprising too, that Ifæus fhould all along be reprefented as the imitator of Lyfias by the very author who exprefsly calls him, in his account of Dinarchus, the inventor of his own original style: he could not, indeed, but admire so fine a composer, who was about forty years older than himself, and had long enjoyed a very flourishing reputation: he must have ftudied the compofitions of Lyfias, and poffibly began with imitating them; but finding them too foft and delicate for his forenfick combats, which required ftronger nerves and harfher features, he changed his courfe, and, taking nature alone for his guide, difcovered and pursued a new fpecies of eloquence, which Demofthenes carried to fuch perfection, that no mortal will ever surpass, nor perhaps equal, him, until the fame habits of industry and folidity of