reply, attacking both Aristotle the scholar and Plato the master. This reply was in four books, and Dionysius characterizes it by an epithet of the highest praise.[63] [Footnote 58: Dionysius, while admiring Isocrates, complains of him, and complains still more of his imitators, as somewhat monotonous, wanting in flexibility and variety (De Compos. Verborum, p. 134). Yet he pronounces Isokrates and Lysias to be more natural, shewing less of craft and art than Isæus and Demosthenes (De Isæo Judicium, p. 592). Isokrates [Greek: to\n o)/gkon tê=s poiêtikê=s kataskeuê=s e)pi\ lo/gous ê)/gage philoso/phous, zêlô/sas tou\s peri\ Forgi/an.] (Dionys. Hal. ad Pompeium de Platone, p. 764; also De Isæo Judicium, p. 592; besides the special chapter, p. 534, seq., which he has devoted to Isokrates.) Cicero, De Oratore, iii. 44, 173: "Idque princeps Isocrates instituisse fertur, ut inconditam antiquorum dicendi consuetudinem delectationis atque aurium causâ, quemadmodum scribit discipulus ejus Naucrates, numeris adstringeret." Compare Cicero, Orator. 52, 175, 176. The reference to Naucrates (whose works have not been preserved, though Dionysius commends his [Greek: Lo/gos E)pita/phios], Ars. Rhet. p. 259) is interesting, as it shews what was said of Isokrates by his own disciples. Cicero says of the doctrines in his own dialogue De Oratore (Epist. ad Famil. i. 9, 23), "Abhorrent a communibus præceptis, et omnem antiquorum, et _Aristoteleam et Isocrateam_, rationem oratoriam complectuntur." About the [Greek: Te/chnê] of Isokrates, see Spengel, [Greek: Sunagôgê\ Technô=n] (Munich), pp. 155-170.] [Footnote 59: Dionysius Hal. dwells emphatically on the lofty morality inculcated in the discourses of Isokrates, and recommends them as most improving study to all politicians (De Isocrate Judic. pp. 536, 544, 555, seq.)--more improving than the writers purely theoretical, among whom he probably numbered Plato and Aristotle.]