is, an ethico-intellectual expression to every truth by exhibiting an
ulterior end which is yet legitimate to it, are said to Platonize.
Thus, Michel Angelo is a Platonist, in his sonnets. Shakspeare is a
Platonist, when he writes, "Nature is made better by no mean, but
nature makes that mean," or,

"He that can endure
To follow with allegiance a fallen lord,
Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
And earns a place in the story."

Hamlet is a pure Platonist, and 'tis the magnitude only of Shakspeare's
proper genius that hinders him from being classed as the most eminent
of this school. Swedenborg, throughout his prose poem of "Conjugal
Love," is a Platonist.

His subtlety commended him to men of thought. The secret of his popular
success is the moral aim, which endeared him to mankind. "Intellect,"
he said, "is king of heaven and of earth;" but, in Plato, intellect
is always moral. His writings have also the sempiternal youth of poetry.
For their arguments, most of them, might have been couched in sonnets;
and poetry has never soared higher than in the Timaeus and the Phaedrus.
As the poet, too, he is only contemplative. He did not, like Pythagoras,
break himself with an institution. All his painting in the Republic
must be esteemed mythical, with intent to bring out, sometimes in
violent colors, his thought. You cannot institute, without peril of
charlatan.

It was a high scheme, his absolute privilege for the best (which, to
make emphatic, he expressed by community of women), as the premium