Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/49

, Chrysippus is said to have left no less, then seven hundred and five Tracts behind him ; But neither of them have had the good luck to stand the shock of Time; nor indeed have we so much as any one Volume of the first set of these Sages come to our Hands. There are only some Fragments of them remaining in Plutarch, Galen, Laertius, and Tully. The first is always, and the second for the most part, their Enemy ; The third is but a bare Reporter, and the last Disputes the Question on both sides. 'Tis true, we had a little better Fortune afterwards : The Works of some later Philosophers of this Perswasion have reach'd us; And those are, Seneca, Epictetus, and our Emperour.

Of these three, Seneca is the first in Time, but in my Opinion, the least in Value, and Merit : 'Tis granted, he has a great many shining Sentences, his Precepts are admirable, his Manner Noble, and his way of Arguing very Acute in many Places ; Indeed he deserves to be read by the most serious Professions as well as others; but then this ought to be done with somewhat of Care and Caution. For to be free with him, he is not Uniform, and all of a Piece. I don't mean his Life, tho' Dion Cassius taxes him upon this Score, as if he wrote one way, and lived another. No, 'tis his Rh