disputant, who knows nothing, but the bounds of whose conquering
intelligence no man had ever reached; whose temper was imperturbable;
whose dreadful logic was always leisurely and sportive; so careless
and ignorant as to disarm the weariest, and draw them, in the
pleasantest manner, into horrible doubts and confusion. But he always
knew the way out; knew it, yet would not tell it. No escape; he drives
them to terrible choices by his dilemmas, and tosses the Hippiases and
Gorgiases, with their grand reputations, as a boy tosses his balls.
The tyrannous realist!-Meno has discoursed a thousand times, at length,
on virtue, before many companies, and very well, as it appeared to
him; but, at this moment, he cannot even tell what it is,--this
cramp-fish of a Socrates has so bewitched him.

This hard-headed humorist, whose strange conceits, drollery, and
_bon-hommie_, diverted the young patricians, whilst the rumor of
his sayings and quibbles gets abroad every day, turns out, in a sequel,
to have a probity as invincible as his logic and to be either insane,
or, at least, under cover of this play, enthusiastic in his religion.
When accused before the judges of subverting the popular creed, he
affirms the immortality of the soul, the future reward and punishment;
and, refusing to recant, in a caprice of the popular government, was
condemned to die, and sent to the prison. Socrates entered the prison,
and took away all ignominy from the place, which could not be a prison,
whilst he was there. Crito bribed the jailor; but Socrates would not
go out by treachery. "Whatever inconvenience ensue, nothing is to be
preferred before justice. These things I hear like pipes and drums,
whose sound makes me deaf to everything you say." The fame of this
prison, the fame of the discourses there, and the drinking of the
hemlock, are one of the most precious passages in the history of the
world.