when accurately examined, will be found to be no less subservient to the
leading design of the dialogues in which they are introduced; at the same
time that they afford a pleasing relaxation to the mind from the labor of
severe investigation. Hence Plato, by the most happy and enchanting art,
contrives to lead the reader to the temple of Truth through the delightful
groves and valleys of the Graces. In short, this circuitous course, when
attentively considered, will be found to be the shortest road by which he
could conduct the reader to the desired end: for in accomplishing this it
is necessary to regard not that road, which is most straight in the
nature of things, or abstractedly considered, but that which is most
direct in the progressions of human understanding.

With respect to the style of Plato, though it forms in reality the
most inconsiderable part of the merit of his writings, style in all
philosophical works being the last thing that should be attended to, yet
even in this Plato may contend for the palm of excellence with the most
renowned masters of diction. Hence we find that his style was the
admiration of the finest writers of antiquity. According to Ammianus,
Jupiter himself would not speak otherwise, if he were to converse in the
Attic tongue. Aristotle considered his style as a medium between poetry
and prose. Cicero no less praises him for the excellence of his diction
than the profundity of his conceptions; and Longinus calls him with
respect to his language, the rival of Homer. Hence he is considered by
this prince of critics, as deriving into himself abundant streams from
the Homeric fountain, and is compared by him, in his rivalship of Homer,
to a new antagonist who enters the lists against one that is already the
object of universal admiration.

Notwithstanding this praise, however, Plato has been accused, as Longinus
informs us, of being frequently hurried away as by a certain Bacchic fury