The Dissertations of Maximus Tyrius

or as if it were impossible for elegant writers to exist in a degenerate age.

In consequence, therefore, of Maximus living prior to the full development of Plato’s philosophy, when he discusses anything pertaining to its more abstruse parts, his conceptions are generally inaccurate, even while he elucidates its more accessible parts with no less fertility of invention than solidity of judgment, and with no less subtlety and accuracy of thought than perspicuity and elegance of diction. In these parts, indeed, he displays great erudition Deep, scholarly knowledge. and science, and employs that mode of writing which requires and invites attention, and which prevents satiety either by the brevity or novelty of the sentences, or the beauty of the imagery, or the variety of the language. So excellent, indeed, is he in these respects, that he may be said to have exhibited in his periods the skill of a consummate rhetorician, combined with that weight of sentiment peculiar to a philosopher, and that sweetness, grace, and harmony, which belong to the