confider that adventure, that to your shame you boast of, which vanity and falfe pride makes you think glorious and honourable, you will find that you have violated another's right, which he purchased, and though difhonourable or criminal in him, was ftill more fo in you, who added injuftice to guilt. The mind. that feels not a repugnance, an abhorrence at the commiffion of a crime, foon grows callous to all the admonitions of virtue: but I will not think fo ill of you; for as yet you may have unwillingly fuffered yourself to be carried away by the strong tide of pleasure, and look back with forrow to the peaceful shore you have quitted. Oh, my good friend, let not my zeal appear impertinent, nor my friendship officious; my regard, my affection for you infpires my pen and prompts my heart. The man who offends leaft has the greatest right to warn others from the ways of vice, but he who has felt the lafh of remorse, has been pierced with the arrows of felf-conviction, can more truly defcribe the miferies attending a courfe of folly, and the gratification of the paffions. I, alas! am an example, a melancholy example of the latter.'

As the fourth volume is not published *, and, consequently, the history remains unfinished, we fhall here conclude this article, which has already been extended longer perhaps than fome of our graver Readers may think was neceffary.

With respect to the ftyle of this work, the language is more eafy than correct; and there are a multitude of little flips, which feem to intimate that the Author wrote in haste. The bookfeller, too, appears to have been as much in a hurry as the Writer. *ci.

* Since this article was put to the prefs, we have seen the 4th and 5th vols. of the Hiftory of Lord Stanton advertised.

ART. V. The History of Agathon. By C. M. Wieland. Translated · from the German Original. 12mo. 4 Vols. 12 s. Cadell. 1773.

MR

R. Wieland has already been introduced to the acquaintance of our Readers. His Socrates was tranflated in 1772, and we gave a brief character of it in the Review for June, in the fame Year. His Reafon triumphant over Fancy appeared foon after, in an English drefs; and our account of it will be found in our Number for February, 1773. In thefe articles we afferted the originality + of this German genius, and

We do not mean to intimate that Mr. W. is the firft modern writer who hath purfued the idea of a PHILOSOPHICAL ROMANCE. We have not forgotten the celebrated Telemachus, nor the Travels of Cyrus, nor the Adventures of Neoptolemes, the Son of Achilles.

allowed

* First article.

allowed his talent for delicate humour, and pointed fatire t. We obferved, nevertheless, that we thought, in fome inftances, he kept the manner of Sterne, the English Rabelais, in view; and we ftill confider him as in fome measure a difciple of that eminent mafter yet he follows no leader with fo much servility as to incur the reproach of being an imitator.

It seems to be the peculiar fancy of this Writer, to fpirit his readers back into the remote ages of ancient Greece, when Greece was in the zenith of her glory; when Plato, Socrates, Xenophon, and other venerable fages flourished to walk with them in the academic grove, to converse with them in the scientific pórtico, to tread over again the fteps of Time, and to join the wisdom and the manners of antiquity with the knowledge and the improvements of later ages. Nor is the affemblage at all unnatural. The art of the Writer, in a great measure, prevents us from seeing where the mixture takes place; so that it is not every ordinary reader who can mark the point where Attic science unites with German ‡ wit; and where the Grecian moralift deviates into the hero of a feigned hiftory.

Nor is it only the wisdom and the virtue of ancient Greece that are here revived and produced as objects of our contemplation and esteem. This various Writer introduces us, likewise, to the luxurious fcenes, the convivial banquets, of the polite and elegant, as well as the fage and philofophic, Athenians; who were equally difpofed to the enjoyment of mental and corporeal pleasures. We fhare with them the gratifications of the table, the raptures of mufic, and all the delights of the most refined and voluptuous love.

But here the graver part of Mr. W.'s readers may be apt to raise some objections to the morality of his prefent performance.

+ The learned and ingenious Author of Agathon has been well known, for fome time paft, in the literary world, as a man of genius and erudition. He has diftinguifhed himself as a poet, a fatyrist, a moral, and a dramatic writer. Though the fingularity of fome of his productions has expofed him to the fevere cenfure of the German critics, yet his writings, in general, have been well received by most of his countrymen.' TRANSLATOR'S Pref. p. x.

The notion of German wit may extort a fmile from those Englifh readers who are unacquainted with the change of complexion which the muses of that empire have undergone, within the prefent century. The lighter French have been fed to fneer at the Germans for their fuppofed want of that play of imagination for which they think themselves fo eminently distinguished above other mortals; but the judicious Tranflator of this work has, in his Preface, very properly expofed the futility of this notion, and done juftice to the merit of the most distinguished German writers; whose names it is here unnecessary to repeat.

REV. Mar. 1774.

N

They

They may enquire whether he has not painted fenfual enjoy ments in colours that are too feductive to young minds, and perfons of warm feelings; and whether his work will not, therefore, prove dangerous to thofe readers who do not always fufficiently difcriminate the luxurious defcription and the moral inference.

Our Author is, indeed, aware of this objection; to which, however, he does not admit that his work is justly amenable. He seems to think that if we would give virtue a real advantage over vice, the encounter fhould be ftrictly conformable to the laws of honour; that each fide fhould have fair play; that both parties fhould be allowed room to exert their full strength, in order to render the fuperiority of the conqueror the more con fpicuous, and the victory more complete and decifive. And here let the Author defend his own cause.

In feveral places of this work, fays he, we have given our reafons why we have not made Agathon the model of a perfectly virtu ous character. The world is already fufficiently stocked with copious treatifes of morality, and every one may freely indulge his fancy (for nothing is eafier) in forming a hero, who fhall from his cradle to his grave, in every circumftance and relation of life, always perceive, think, and act as a perfect moralift. But as Agathon was intended to reprefent a real character, in which others might discover their own likeness, we maintain that the author could not, cons fiftently with this defign, make him more virtuous than he is; but if others are of a contrary opinion (for it is certain that the best cha racter is that which has the greateft qualities with the feweft faults) we only defire that they would, among all mankind, fix upon any one, who, in a fimilar fituation, would have been more virtuous than Agathon.

A young libertine, poffibly upon finding that an Agathon was overcome by the infinuating allurements of love and of a Danae, may be ready to draw the fame conclufion that Chærea does in Terence, upon viewing a picture which reprefented an amorous intrigue of Jupiter. After having read with fecret joy that fuch a man had fallen, he might exclaim in the words of Chærea in the poet; Ego homuncio boc non facerem? Ego vero illud faciam, ac lubens. A man too of a vicious turn of mind, or of a profligate character, may, perhaps, upon reading the argument of the fophift Hippias, imagine that they will plead an excufe for his vices, and juftify his infidelity; but every honeft man must be convinced, that the immorality of the one, and the licentious freedom of the other, would have been just the fame, had the hiftory of Agathon never appeared.

• This laft inftance naturally leads us to an explanation, which we think ourselves obliged to make, to obviate the fcruples of certain ignorant though well meaning perfons, and to prevent them from taking offence haftily, or forming any rafh judgment.

This relates to the introduction of the fophift Hippias in this hiftory, and to that particular discourse, in which he flatters himself he fhall get the better of Agathon's virtuous and amiable enthu

siasm,

frafm, and infpire him with fuch a turn of thought, as the fophift with good reafon believed to be more fit for his advancement in the world. People who fee things in a proper light, will readily perceive, both from the whole plan of this work, and from the manner in which we fpeak of this fophift and his principles, how little we approve either the man or his fyftem. But though it is neither agreeable to our manner of thinking, or confiftent with the caft and defign of our work, to inveigh against him with the furious zeal which tranfports a young divine, when he enters the field of polemical controverfy against a Tindal or a Bolingbroke, in order the better to recommend himself to the favour of his patron, for a good living: yet we hope we have left the fenfible and well-difpofed reader no room to doubt, that we look upon Hippias as a bad and dangerous man, and confider his fyftem (as far as it oppofes the effential principles of religion and juftice) as a piece of fophiftry, which would deftroy human fociety, if it were morally probable that the greater part of mankind fhould be influenced by it. We flatter ourselves, that we are entirely free from fufpicion upon this head; but among our readers fome good people may be found, who may at least tax us with imprudence, and think that we either ought not to have introduced fuch a man as Hippias, or, if the plan of our work required it, that we fhould have fully refuted his principles; we think it but reasonable to lay before them the motives which induced us to do the one and not the other.

Our plan required that our hero fhould be represented under a variety of trials, which might make his turn of thought and his virtues confpicuous, and gradually feparate every thing falfe or extravagant from his mind. It was therefore neceffary to make him undergo thefe trials, as Hippias is a well known hiftorical character, who with the other fophifts of his time, had greatly contributed to corrupt the manners of the Greeks: the contraft alfo between these two characters is extremely proper to fet that of Agathon with his principles in the most advantageous light. Befides, as it is but too evident that the greater part of thofe, who form what is called the polite world, have the fame fentiments as Hippias, or act agreeably to his principles, fo it was a part of the moral plan of this work, to fhew the effect of these principles, when reduced to a proper fyftem. These are the chief reafons which occafioned the introduction of this fophift in our hiftory, though we have not reprefented him worfe than he really was, or than his followers are at prefent.

A full refutation of what was either falfe or dangerous in his opinions (for he is not always in the wrong) would have been, according to our defign, entirely misplaced; and we cannot but think it would have been alfo fuperfluous to our readers. Agathon's anfwer to him is the best that can be given, but the whole work, to any one who confiders it altogether, will appear to be a complete refutation of it. Agathon baffles Hippias nearly in the fame manner as Diogenes did the fophift, who denied that there was any fuch thing as motion: Diogenes permitted him to talk on as long as he would, and when he had done, he contented himself only with walking careLefsly about before him. This, undoubtedly, was the only answer the fophift deserved.'

It would be difficult to enlarge farther on the plan and character of this pleafing performance, without feeming to have borrowed from the ketch of the work given in the Tranflator's preface; we fhall therefore content ourselves with an abstract of what is there faid on the merit of this very fingular romance; viz.

The History of Agathon is confidered as the Author's masterpiece; and indeed he discovers throughout the whole of this work much original genius, and very extenfive reading of modern as well as ancient writers. In the first volume we find a learned and curious account of the fophifts of Greece, which feems conformable to what we read of them in the dialogues of Plato and Lucian. There is much good metaphyfical reasoning in the conferences between Hippias and Agathon; and though it has been justly imputed to the writers of controverfial dialogues, that they are cautious of reprefenting in their full force the arguments they mean to refute, yet Mr. WIELAND has been particularly attentive not to incur this cenfure. The arguments the fophift Hippias ufes in fupport of his system, appear to be fet in their ftrongest light, fo that it may fometimes be a matter of doubt, whether the reply is fufficiently convincing. In general, however, Agathon has the best of the difpute; and if even there fhould be room to doubt, it may be owing to the Author's accuracy in endeavouring to make the answers confiftent with his hero's character, which in his younger days was that of an enthufiaft.

The behaviour of Agathon at Athens in the fecond volume is remarkably ftriking; and the defcription of the manners and difpofition of that republic very juft and entertaining. The account of the court of Dionyfius is extremely pleafing; and the court-intrigues are difplayed with a degree of penetration and fagacity, which indicate a thorough knowledge of the human heart. The extracts from Agathon's speech in favour of a monarchical government, are mafterpieces of elegance as well as of found reasoning. These parts of the work are fo excellent that they may be read with pleasure, perhaps with advantage; by statesmen and politicians.

The character of Archytas in the last volume is highly finished; and may be looked upon as one of the most amiable and confiftent characters ever drawn.

But it would be endless to particularize all the beauties of this work. Let it fuffice to fay, that Mr. WIELAND's stile is nervous and ftrong, his descriptions poetical and picturesque, though on fome occafions they may be too wild. His reafoning, upon the, whole, is juft, and in many parts we meet with that noble fimplicity, which is the characteristic mark of the ancient manner of writing, and the test of true genius.

Among fuch a variety of excellencies, we could wish there were blemishes of confequence to be found, efpecially as thofe which do occur might have been fo eafily avoided. We must do the Author the justice to declare, that these faults feem chiefly to have arisen from hurry and want of attention, evident marks of which manifest themfelves in this otherwife fuperior and capital performance.

2

A vein