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Yet his real power is not shown in the splendour of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.
There are men also, who through that fault, which originated chiefly with Hegesias, by breaking up abruptly, and cutting short their rhythm, have fallen into an abject style of speaking, very much like that of the Sicilians. There is a third kind adopted by those brothers, the chiefs of the Asiatic rhetoricians, Hierocles and Maecles, men who are not at all to be despised, in my opinion at least.
"Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll." La Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. His blunders would not come in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But these men attained literary eminence in spite of their weaknesses. Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. If he had not been a great fool, he would never have been a great writer.
In this he was very unlike Swift, who, in his youth, when travelling in England, 'generally chose to dine with waggoners, hostlers, and persons of that rank; and he used to lie at night in houses where he found written of the door Lodgings for a penny. He delighted in scenes of low life. Lord Orrery's Swift, ed. 1752, p. 33. This is from the Jests of Hierocles.
The reader will recognise many old acquaintances, but he need not touch his hat, lest, his politeness weary him. These old stories are but "pick'd to be new vann'd." Hierocles' Facetiae. An irritable man went to visit a sick friend, and asked him concerning his health.
Hierocles, the Alexandrian, was at this time teaching philosophy in his native city, where his zeal and eloquence in favour of Platonism drew upon him the anger of the Christians and the notice of the government. He was sent to Constantinople to be punished for not believing in Christianity, for it does not appear that, like the former Hierocles, he ever wrote against it.
To unbend after this serious study, some other short and agreeable books that have a relation to it may be read: such as Ecclesiasticus, the Wisdom of Solomon, Theognis, Phocilides, the Golden Verses ascribed to Pythagoras, Epictetus's Enchiridion, Hierocles, and the Commentaries of Arrian; not omitting the Characters of Theophrastus.
There is another wound, not exhibited, which is the real source of all this rage. It is that Hierocles massacres the Christians in the name of philosophy and liberty. Time will do me justice, if my work deserves it, and you will greatly accelerate this justice by the publication of your articles, provided you could be induced to change and modify them to a certain point.
"The former is sententious and sprightly, and abounds in those turns of sentiment which are not so much distinguished by their weight and solidity as by their neatness and elegance; of this cast was Timaeus the Historian, and the two Orators so much talked of in our younger days, Hierocles the Alabandean, and his brother Menecles, but particularly the latter; both whose Orations may be reckoned master-pieces of the kind.
Good works are not the causes, but the fruits and effects of true religion, of justifying faith wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost; and where true religion is, good works, of every divine kind and quality, will naturally follow, to the glory and praise of that grace which alone brings salvation to miserable ruined sinners. Mason and Ryland. Hierocles, the Greek philosopher.
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