talents in the more profitable trade of
panegyric; and the same precepts continued to dictate the fanciful
declamations of the sophist, and the chaster beauties of historical
composition. The systems which professed to unfold the nature of God, of
man, and of the universe, entertained the curiosity of the philosophic
student; and according to the temper of his mind, he might doubt with
the Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate with Plato,
or severely argue with Aristotle. The pride of the adverse sects had
fixed an unattainable term of moral happiness and perfection; but the
race was glorious and salutary; the disciples of Zeno, and even those
of Epicurus, were taught both to act and to suffer; and the death of
Petronius was not less effectual than that of Seneca, to humble a tyrant
by the discovery of his impotence. The light of science could not indeed
be confined within the walls of Athens. Her incomparable writers address
themselves to the human race; the living masters emigrated to Italy
and Asia; Berytus, in later times, was devoted to the study of the law;
astronomy and physic were cultivated in the musaeum of Alexandria; but
the Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy maintained their superior
reputation from the Peloponnesian war to the reign of Justinian.
Athens, though situate in a barren soil, possessed a pure air, a free
navigation, and the monuments of ancient art. That sacred retirement was
seldom disturbed by the business of trade or government; and the last
of the Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit, the purity
of their taste and language, their social manners, and some traces, at
least in discourse, of the magnanimity of their fathers. In the
suburbs of the city, the academy of the Platonists, the lycaeum of
the Peripatetics, the portico of the Stoics, and the garden of the
Epicureans, were planted with trees and decorated with statues; and the
philosophers, instead of being immured in a cloister, delivered their
instructions in spacious and pleasant walks, which, at different hours,
were consecrated to the exercises of the mind and body. The genius
of the founders still lived in those venerable seats; the ambition of
succeeding to the masters of human reason excited a generous emulation;
and the merit of the candidates was determined, on each vacancy, by the
free voices of an enlightened people. The Athenian professors were paid
by their disciples: according to their mut