Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/227

Rh proper and as domestic an instance as the other. And yet the Pythagoreans all agree, that their master and Phalaris were acquainted, and Doctor Bentley grants it: why should Plato's ill memory be a proof against the one, and no proof against the other? But I rather think it was his good judgement than his ill memory that occasioned this omission. Phalaris's name was detested and infamous in Sicily, and to have brought him in, therefore, among his other instances, would have spoiled the compliment to Dionysius, who might like well enough to have the parallel drawn between him and Hiero, or Pericles, or Periander, or Croesus, but would not have thought it a civility, I believe, to have been compared with Phalaris, whose character when taken at the best, and as drawn in these Epistles, is not so amiable as that any man should be pleased with resembling him; especially one who could not but be conscious to himself, that he had made use of his methods, and had reason to expect his fate. Plato was a great master of decency, and he never showed it more than in this dexterous management, which I am not surprised to find that our Library-keeper has no relish of.