manner of speaking, was the extreme deliberation of it, and the command which so young a man discovered of himself. Though no one has a better invention, or more flowing diction, yet if the properest argument or phrase did not immediately occur to him, he would pause and hesitate till they did. He would repeat his last words over again, while he was thinking forward, and the produce always made amends for the delay. CLEON and EPIGENES however prevailed. The estimates were allowed, and the project on Cythera is to be executed. It was expected, that NICIAS would have taken a part in this debate; but it seems he told his party, that since the assembly would not hearken to peace, he should not oppose any probable scheme that might carry on the war. Others suggest, that he is to be general in the expedition, and being desirous of that service, would not vote against it. It is very difficult to determine on the hidden motives, which give rise to the conduct of any man; but the last consideration seems too trifling to determine NICIAS, and the first is agreeable to the singularity of his temper.

Excellent minister, I have often thought, that a diligent searcher into human nature may find better and more various materials for his inquiry in the noisy factions that divide a popular government, than in the court-parties which arise under the silent and regular dispensations of monarchy. In the debates of the one upon publick business, a man must be very artful indeed, who can always conceal indiscretion or vanity as an orator, avarice or ambition as a statesman; who, in a sudden emotion of the mind, or emergency of affairs, betrays neither fear nor rashness, neither insincerity nor weakness. In the councils of the other, those who are at the head of them, are not exposed to the same means of discovering their abilities or foibles; every measure is taken at the unopposed suggestion of the minister, and the awful nod of the sovereign. In the former, if the chief of a party

a party is accused of crimes, the dispute grows warm; his friends and his enemies distinguish themselves; the understandings, the passions, the interests, the intrigues of both are laid open, and every man in Greece, according to his judgment, or his attachments, adopts the pretensions of either. In the latter, all these are the subject of dissimulation, and however different in different men, are covered by the same outside; besides, as things are more summarily managed, of course there cannot be the same room for indulging them; the whisper of an eunuch decides the fate of a great minister, and the suffocating heat of the ash-tower prevents the complaints of himself and his relations from the ear of Asia.

3 H

VOL. II.

C.

LETTER CLXXVII.

SAPPHO to CLeander*.

WHEN HEN I own, CLEANDER, that I have seen thy ode upon the Attick myrtle, I think myself bound by it to no acknowledgment. CORINNA, however, insists upon my writing about it, even though it be to confess a delicacy which she rallies as false and affected. I am too happy, she cries, at any rate, to be the subject of so exquisite a muse. Forgive me, CLEANDER; a temper less lively than her's is overcome by the sentiments of the heart, and cannot but be shocked at a praise that so plainly implies disesteem. What makes it the worse is, that thy verses are so likely to attain immortality. To be thus misrepresented by some inferior sculptor, had been but a short-lived vexation; but the hand of a PHIDIAS will transmit the error to posterity. Let posterity think as it pleases; for thee, CLE

* The two letters of SAPPHO to CLEANDER are extremely obscure. They relate to some correspondence which had been carried on between him and that lady, in which, however, there was nothing dishonourable, as appears from several expressions in them. In the second, she opens herself with great severity and resentment on the manner in which he talked of the freedom she indulged him; but it is very probable she was not rightly informed of his conduct; since the representation here given of it, is entirely inconsistent with every sentiment and every action, either explained or alluded to in this collection. Something must be allowed to her delicate sense of honour, which might suspect an injury, before almost the approach of it; and it is a presumption in CLEANDER's favour, that though he frequented very much the house of ASPASIA, and, as he declares in Letter cxxxvii, even "courted the company "of the fair sex," that these are the only passages, which charge him with an unbecoming levity. Other negotiators have been less rigid in the same particular. Our Ephesian understood how to converse with the ladies for political purposes, without proceeding to gallantries; which shews him to have been a complete master in the most refined insinuation. Note by the Translator.

ANDER,

ANDER, I would be adorned rather with the modest, soft, and female graces, which dwell retired among the domestick virtues, than with those slight external charms, which have more lustre in poetry. Remember too, that HOMER, (whom in the shades of Salamis we have so oft admired together, while the hours rolled away with an imperceptible swiftness,) whose beauties burst upon thee with a blaze of light, while the wanton rays of ANACREON but played upon thy fancy, adorns his heroines with modest silence, and thinks the blush of VENUS too doubtful a praise, when he does not chastise it with the coy air of DIANA. I begin to be afraid, CLEANDER, that the unaffected ease of our Athenian manners, compared with those of other countries more familiar to thee, has made thee form a judgment greatly to our disadvantage. Observe, however, that the exact medium is equally distant from its extremes. Farewel: I accept the compliment of thy ode; I reject its flattery; and while you paint me with the shining qualities of the ancient SAPPHо, am too justly afraid of an inconstant PHAON.

`T.

3 н 2

LETTER CLXXVIII.

SAPPHO to CLEANDER.

YET once more will I trust these treacherous tablets with the secret of my heart. Yet once more shall the vain CLEANDER boast, that he has received them from the hand of CORINNA; and from that air of mystery shall draw to the giddy companions of his mirth what licentious inferences he pleases. The name of SAPPHO is destined, I find, to be tossed about by the infectious breath of slander, since CADMUS first brought into Greece the ill-fated letters that compose it. it. Was it that name, CLEANDER, that inspired thee with this vain presumption? We both have been deceived by names : Faith, Honour, Constancy, Discretion, Tenderness, these too, I find, are empty names, no more implying any virtue in CLEANDER, than the detested name of SAPPHO imports that wild licentiousness of conduct in the daughter of PALAMEDE, which in a former SAPPHO made it infamous.

Methinks, CLEANDER, (for imagination will still be too busy in retracing familiar ideas,) I see the astonishment with which you read these tablets, so differently filled from what they used to be. The Muses and the Sportive Graces here were used to court thy elegance of taste. The Muses and the sportive Graces fled in a moment at the sound of thy boasting: yet they called not the revengful ATE to supply their place. Thy life, CLEANDER, was now really in my hand. Thy treacherous correspondence is betrayed by treachery. The wretch has sacrificed that trust to an idle passion, which

the