Plato--who has been called, by Clement of Alexandria, the Moses of Athens; the philosopher of the Christians, by Arnobius; and the god of philosophers, by Cicero--Athenæus accuses of envy; Theopompus of lying; Suidas of avarice; Aulus Gellius, of robbery; Porphyry, of incontinence; and Aristophanes, of impiety. Aristotle, whose industry composed more than four hundred volumes, has not been less spared by the critics; Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, and Plutarch, have forgotten nothing that can tend to show his ignorance, his ambition, and his vanity. It has been said, that Plato was so envious of the celebrity of Democritus, that he proposed burning all his works; but that Amydis and Clinias prevented it, by remonstrating that there were copies of them everywhere; and Aristotle was agitated by the same passion against all the philosophers his predecessors. Virgil is destitute of invention, if we are to give credit to Pliny, Carbilius, and Seneca. Caligula has absolutely denied him even mediocrity; Herennus has marked his faults; and Perilius Faustinus has furnished a thick volume with his plagiarisms. Even the author of his apology has confessed, that he has stolen from Homer his greatest beauties; from Apollonius Rhodius, many of his pathetic passages; from Nicander, hints for his Georgies; and this does not terminate the catalogue. Horace censures the coarse humour of Plautus; and Horace, in his turn, has been blamed for the free use he made of the Greek minor poets. The majority of the critics regard Pliny's Natural History only as a heap of fables; and Pliny cannot bear with Diodorus and Vopiscus; and in one comprehensive criticism, treats all the historians as narrators of fables.