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ISOCRATES.

ISOCRATES was born at Athens, in the year 456, before the Christian era. His natural timidity, or perhaps a proper distrust of his own powers, precluded him from the tribune, which opened, to men of superior talent, and sometimes only of superior audacity, a road to the most brilliant offices. The professio of rhetorician, more suitable to the abilities of Isocrates, procured him an existence infinitely more comfortable than the eloquence of the tribune. Gorgias, surnamed Leontinus, had acquired, by teaching rhetoric, a fortune which enabled him to decorate the temple of Delphos with an offering which would have reflected lustre on the magnificence of a monarch. Isocrates was no less fortunate the number of his disciples was so great, that Cicero, speaking after tradition, compared his school to the Trojan Horse, from whence a crowd of armed warriors issued. His orations, which have descended to us, convey an idea of a writer deficient in warmth and enthusiasm, more occupied about words than things, and who was less mindful of polishing his expressions, than in creating ideas. His panegyric on Athens was the labour of ten years. Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, compared his eloquence to that of Lysias, and says, that he is by no means his inferior in purity of language, and in his attention to the language of his time; but he censures his diction, as being grave and pompous, and his periods, as heavy and dull:-in point of invention and arrangement, he considers him greatly superior to Lysias. The same critic praises, in a particular manner, the choice

of his subjects, as being always dignified, and directed to the welfare of his country. In opposition to the opinion of Dionysius, Isocrates has been esteemed by others for the sweetness and graceful simplicity of his style, for the harmony of his expressions, and the dignity of his language.

The life of this celebrated orator presents few events. He was taught in the school of Gorgias and Prodicus, but his oratorical abilities were never displayed in public. In the midst of political dissentions, his school was respected; and, though he had the courage to wear mourning for the death of Socrates, tyranny did not molest the expression of grief and gratitude in the disciple of that illustrious victim. The cause of his death was honourable: the defeat of the Athenians, at Cheronæa, had such an effect upon his spirits, that he would not survive the disgrace of his country. He died, after he had been four days without taking any aliment, in the 99th year of his age, about 338 years before J. C.

It is said that Demosthenes took lessons of him, and that Isocrates admitted him gratuitously into his school, because the mediocrity of his fortune did not permit him to pay the sum he required of his disciples.

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KIRCHER.

ATHANASIUS KIRCHER, a famous philosopher and mathematician, and withal a learned man, was born at Fulden, in Germany, in the year 1601. He entered into the society of Jesuits in 1618, and after going through the regular course of studies, during which he shewed most amazing parts and industry, he taught philosophy, mathematics, and the Hebrew and Syriac languages, in the university of Birtzburg, in Franconia. The war which Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, made in Germany, disturbing his repose, he retired into France, and settled in the Jesuits' college, at Avignon, where he was in 1635. He was afterwards called to Rome, where he taught music in the Roman college, for six years. He spent the remainder of his life in that city, and for some time professed the Hebrew language. He died in 1680, after having published as many books as one would think might employ a good part of his life even to transcribe, for they consist of twenty-two volumes folio, eleven quarto, and three octavo.

His works are rather curious than useful, frequently savouring much of visions and fancy, and if they are not always accompanied with the greatest exactness and precision, the reader, we presume, will not be astonished. His principal work is "Oedipus Ægyptiacus: hoc est, universalis hieroglyphicæ veterum doctrinæ temporum injuria abolitæ, instauratis."-Romæ, 1652, in four vols. folio.

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