Asia; they were, however,
neither known to Pindar, and the nine lyric poets, nor to Plato, or
Demosthenes. They arrived at Athens in evil hour, and imported with
them that enormous frothy loquacity, which at once, like a pestilence,
blasted all the powers of genius, and established the rules of corrupt
eloquence. _Nondum umbraticus doctor ingenia deleverat, cum Pindarus
novemque lyrici Homericis versibus canere non timuerunt. Certe neque
Platona, neque Demosthenem, ad hoc genus exercitationis accessisse
video. Nuper ventosa isthaec et enormis loquacitas Athenas ex Asia
commigravit, animosque juvenum ad magna surgentes veluti pestilenti
quodam sidere afflavit; simulque corruptae eloquentiae regula stetit et
obtinuit._ Petron. _Satyricon_, s. 2.

Section 5.

[a] When the public taste was vitiated, and to _elevate and surprise_,
as Bayes says, was the _new way of writing_, Seneca is, with good
reason, ranked in the class of ingenious, but affected authors. Menage
says, if all the books in the world were in the fire, there is not
one, whom he would so eagerly snatch from the flames as Plutarch. That
author never tires him; he reads him often, and always finds new
beauties. He cannot say the same of Seneca; not but there are
admirable passages in his works, but when brought to the test they
lose their apparent beauty by a close examination. Seneca serves to be
quoted in the warmth of conversation, but is not of equal value in the
closet. Whatever be the subject, he wishes to shine, and, by
consequence, his thoughts are too refined, and often _false.
Menagiana_, tom. ii. p. 1.

Section 6.

[a] This charge against Seneca is by no means new. Quintilian was his
contemporary; he saw and heard the man, and, in less than twenty
years after his death, pronounced judgement against him. In the
conclusion of the first chapter of his tenth book, after having given
an account of the Greek and Roman authors, he says, he reserved Seneca
for the last place, because, having always endeavoured to counteract
the influence of a bad taste, he was supposed to be influenced by
motives of personal enmity. But the case was otherwise. He saw that
Seneca was the favourite of the times, and, to check the torrent that
threatened the ruin of all true eloquence, he exerted his best efforts
to diffuse a sounder judgement. He did not wish that Seneca should be
laid aside: but he could not in silence see him preferred to the
writers of the Augustan