Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/188

114 and Pausanias, Thales' with Periander, Anaxagoras's with Pericles, Solon's and others with Croesus. Now, how could he have missed, had he ever heard of it, this of Stesichorus with Phalaris—being transacted in Sicily, and so a most proper and domestic example? If you say, the infamy of Phalaris made him decline that odious instance; in that very word you pronounce our Epistles to be spurious. For if they had been known to Plato, even Phalaris would have appeared as moderate a tyrant as Dionysius himself. Lucian, that feigns an embassy from Phalaris to Delphi for the dedication of the brazen bull, makes an oration in his praise, as Isocrates does of Busiris; where, without doubt, he has gathered all the stories he knew for topics of his commendation: but he has not one word of his friendship with Stesichorus. Nor, indeed, has anybody else. And do not you yet begin to suspect the credit of the letters?

It would be endless to prosecute this part, and shew all the silliness and impertinency in the matter of the Epistles. For, take them in the whole bulk, if a great person would give me leave, I should say, they are a fardel of common places, without any life or