charisi, tois ge dunamenois and the like; the pleonastic use of tanun, of
os, of os eros eipein, of ekastote; and the periphrastic use of the
preposition peri. Lastly, he observes the tendency to hyperbata or
transpositions of words, and to rhythmical uniformity as well as
grammatical irregularity in the structure of the sentences.

For nearly all the expressions which are adduced by Zeller as arguments
against the genuineness of the Laws, Stallbaum finds some sort of
authority. There is no real ground for doubting that the work was written
by Plato, merely because several words occur in it which are not found in
his other writings. An imitator may preserve the usual phraseology of a
writer better than he would himself. But, on the other hand, the fact that
authorities may be quoted in support of most of these uses of words, does
not show that the diction is not peculiar. Several of them seem to be
poetical or dialectical, and exhibit an attempt to enlarge the limits of
Greek prose by the introduction of Homeric and tragic expressions. Most of
them do not appear to have retained any hold on the later language of
Greece. Like several experiments in language of the writers of the
Elizabethan age, they were afterwards lost; and though occasionally found
in Plutarch and imitators of Plato, they have not been accepted by
Aristotle or passed into the common dialect of Greece.

5. Unequal as the Laws are in style, they contain a few passages which are
very grand and noble. For example, the address to the poets: 'Best of
strangers, we also are poets of the best and noblest tragedy; for our
whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we affirm
to be indeed the very truth of tragedy.' Or again, the sight of young men
and maidens in friendly intercourse with one another, suggesting the
dangers to which youth is liable from the violence of passion; or the
eloquent denunciation of unnatural lusts in the same passage; or the