SOCRATES. [z] I inhabit a city of my own founding; I have introduced a new form of government, and I make my own laws. BUYE R. I should be glad to have a fample of your le giflation. SOCRATES. I pe I will mention to you one of the most important of my inftitutions concerning women. ordain, that no woman fhall be deemed the culiar property of any one man, but ready and willing to oblige every one who likes her with every favour in her power to bestow. BUYER. What, are the laws against adultery then to be confidered as null and void? [x] This, and what follows, alludes to the Republick, &c. of Plato. Plato is generally fuppofed to have exprefied the fentiments of his matter Socrates, who published nothing himself. He was too wife to write books, SOCRATES. Ay, certainly, all that trifling is at an end. BUYE R. What is your pleasure with refpect to youth of the other fex? SOCRATES. My pleasure is, that the publick bestow them as a recompence to fuch as fhall deferve them by diftinguished actions. BUYER. A very bountiful legiflator! And what do you fay is the principal wisdom? SOCRATES. Ideas and models of existence. Beyond the boundaries of the univerfe are certain invifible images of all that you fee, of the earth, and of every thing upon it, of the fea, and of the fky. BUYE R. Where are they, do you say? SO SOCRATES. No where. If they were any where, they would not be at all. BUY E R. I cannot perceive any of them. SOCRATES. I do not wonder at that: the eye of your understanding is blind. But I contemplate the images of all things. I do not perceive you as you appear. I see myself a perfon different from myself. To me all things appear double. BUYE R. You are so very wife, and can see so well, that I must have you.-Hark you, Mercury, what do you ask for him? MERCURY. Pray, what is your name? BUYE R. I am [a] Dion, of Syracuse. MERCURY. Take him, with twenty [6] good lucks.I fhall next put up the Epicuræan. Who will buy him? He is a disciple of the [c] Laugher and the Toper, two lots juft fold. But he ventures to carry matters farther than his mafters, being fomewhat more profane. As to what re [a] The reader is to understand what is here faid of Socrates as applicable to Plato, for whom, as we are informed by Cornelius Nepos, Dion had a most extravagant regard; and, by the favour of Dionyfius, enjoyed his company and converfation. Dionyfius, however, not being himself equally charmed with his new acquaintance, ordered him to be fold for a flave. Accordingly, as Diodorus Siculus informs us, he was fold in the market for twenty minæ, equal to 641. 11s. 8d. Had he been fold as a philofopher, perhaps he would not have fetched fo much. [6] Ay: λabwv ayan Tux is the original. The tranflation was taken from the mouth of a country auctioneer. [c] Democritus and Ariftippus. From the former he learnt the doctrine of attoms, from the latter his theory of pleasure. mains mains of his character; he is a good-humoured fellow, and a dear lover of good living. BUY E R. What is the price of him? MERCURY. [d] Two minæ. BUY E R. Here is your money. Pray what kind of food does he prefer? MERCURY. He loves any thing fweet; any thing that taftes of honey; but his favourite repaft is figs. BUY E R. If that be all, I can eafily fupply him. I will buy him whole frails of figs from Caria. JUPITER. Call another. Let us have that smooth-pated, four-looking [e] ftoick. [d] Six pounds, nine fhillings, and two pence. [e] Chryfippus. C 2 MER |