manuscript, that of Paris, is regarded as the parent of the rest. It is
a small quarto of 414 pages, whereof 335 are occupied by the “Problems”
of Aristotle. Several leaves have been lost, hence the fragmentary
character of the essay. The Paris MS. has an index, first mentioning the
“Problems,” and then ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΥ Η ΛΟΓΓΙΝΟΥ ΠΕΡΙ ΥΨΟΥΣ, that is, “The
work of Dionysius, or of Longinus, about the Sublime.”

[Footnote 1: Longmans, London, 1836.]

On this showing the transcriber of the MS. considered its authorship
dubious. Supposing that the author was Dionysius, which of the many
writers of that name was he? Again, if he was Longinus, how far does his
work tally with the characteristics ascribed to that late critic, and
peculiar to his age?

About this Longinus, while much is written, little is certainly known.
Was he a descendant of a freedman of one of the Cassii Longini, or of an
eastern family with a mixture of Greek and Roman blood? The author of
the Treatise avows himself a Greek, and apologises, as a Greek, for
attempting an estimate of Cicero. Longinus himself was the nephew and
heir of Fronto, a Syrian rhetorician of Emesa. Whether Longinus was born
there or not, and when he was born, are things uncertain. Porphyry, born
in 233 A.D., was his pupil: granting that Longinus was twenty years
Porphyry’s senior, he must have come into the world about 213 A.D. He
travelled much, studied in many cities, and was the friend of the mystic
Neoplatonists, Plotinus and Ammonius. The former called him “a
philologist, not a philosopher.” Porphyry shows us Longinus at a supper
where the plagiarisms of Greek writers are discussed--a topic dear to
trivial or spiteful mediocrity. He is best known by his death. As the
Greek secretary of Zenobia he inspired a haughty answer from the queen